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Cleaning up The Wiki
AMCerasoli
Member #11,955
May 2010
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hmm.. Well I'm going to sleep 3:48 here... I was about to let it for tomorrow. I'm tired... You can change it back, anyway I don't think Linux users need this kind of tutorials... This is more for creating-a-game-shouldn't-be-so-difficult newbies... ;D

Good Night.
ZZZzzzZZZzzzzz

Evert
Member #794
November 2000
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Should create separated section?

SVN isn't a platform, so I'd say no. The SVN installation instructions should probably be included in every platform-specific page if they are to be complete. On the other hand, they are similar (to identical) for all platforms.

anyway I don't think Linux users need this kind of tutorials... This is more for creating-a-game-shouldn't-be-so-difficult newbies...

Why do you think Linux users can't be newbies?

Thomas Fjellstrom
Member #476
June 2000
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AMCERASOLI: why have you duplicated the same content on both "Game Design & Concepts" and the Category "Game Design & Concepts"? You don't need both. Might as well stick it in the Category, then the Category can automatically list pages, rather than making people manually add pages to the "Game Design & Concepts" page.

Also don't put a / in a page name unless its a Sub page of an existing article.

--
Thomas Fjellstrom - [website] - [email] - [Allegro Wiki] - [Allegro TODO]
"If you can't think of a better solution, don't try to make a better solution." -- weapon_S
"The less evidence we have for what we believe is certain, the more violently we defend beliefs against those who don't agree" -- https://twitter.com/neiltyson/status/592870205409353730

AMCerasoli
Member #11,955
May 2010
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@Evert: I was joking.

What do you mean with manually? they're gonna have to create a link anyway ( [[my new page]] )

There are many ways to organize the wiki: Categories, Lists and Navigation templates.

Personally I don't like the way Categories work.

Wikipedia said:

Disadvantages of categories

Categories can't be edited directly to add or remove entries. This must be done at the bottom of each article to be included or excluded from the category.

The entries in categories can't be edited, such as adding references or annotations to them, and the user must go to the article to see these.

There is no provision for referencing, to verify a topic meets a category's criteria of inclusion
The category namespace is not included by default in searches using Wikipedia's search box.

Searches of the category namespace do not actually search the categories, only the category pages.

Category entries are arranged in alphabetical order only (though you can control the alphabetization). They cannot be organized into sections and subsections on a single page, each with its own descriptive introduction.

Categories can be difficult to maintain:
A category with hundreds of items cannot be moved except by editing hundreds of articles (though a bot can help)
Tracking changes to a category is effectively impossible:
A category's edit history does not show when entries were added or removed from the category. So there is no easy way to tell when an article is removed from a category – it simply disappears with no indication that it was ever there in the first place.

Wikipedia's watchlist feature is useless for tracking changes to a category's membership, because those do not show up as edits to the page (because they don't even exist on that page – they're at the bottom of each member page).

Categories do not support other forms of tracking, such as adding red links. (Red links are useful as gap indicators and as task reminders to create those articles). However stubs can be added to categories.

Categories give no context for any specific entry, nor any elaboration; only the name of the article is given. That is, listings cannot be annotated (with descriptions nor comments), nor referenced.
Alternative names for the same item can be included only by including redirects in the category.

It is not obvious to new users that categories exist, how to add items to them, how to link new categories into existing schemes, nor how to deal with point of view (POV) concerns.

Display of items in a category is limited to 200 on a page. To see the full contents of a category with more members than this, multiple pages need to be viewed.

All this contrast with just this Advantages

Quote:

Auto-linking. Create a link to a category on an article page, and a corresponding link to that article will be visible on the category page.

Multi-directional navigation. A category can contain multiple subcategories, and can also be part of several categories. Categories are organized within Wikipedia into a web of knowledge starting with Category:Categories.

Categories are good for exploratory browsing of Wikipedia.

Categories are less susceptible to external linkspam than other types of pages, because only Wikipedia articles can be members of categories.

They are relatively unobtrusive in that they generally don't distract from the flow of the article.

Nevertheless I don't like "list" or "templates" neither, I just want a simple way to navigate, like most web pages works... I was thinking to avoid categories.

Also I don't like the BIG "Category:" word before each title.

Well, that is what I think...

Elias
Member #358
May 2000

Well, the advantages in your list are mostly real advantages:

  • auto-linking: If we go with categories, the top-level navigation will automatically work. Articles will appear in the right place and be sorted alphabetically. Maintaining the complete navigation by hand may sound more appealing right now but once there's many articles it will be a mess if we don't have someone regularly cleaning it.

  • multi-directional navigation: We can do that manually as well of course but maintaining it would be very hard, you'd have to link each article in all the places where it's relevant (as opposed to just tagging another category to it).

  • exploratory browsing: If you read an article, say on some networking subject, you can just click the networking category to see a list of all networking related articles in the Allegro wiki. It would be almost impossible to have the same functionality manually (you'd have to manually maintain a list about all networking related articles and link to it from each such article...)

  • linkspam: Personally I think that's an advantage. Not because of spam links but because of external links in general... they get outdated or disappear completely, so better to have a wiki page for such links and not just put external links into the navigation.

  • unobtrusive: i guess alternatives would be just as unobtrusive...

About the bold disadvantages, first you do not want to directly edit them, that's actually a big advantage. I also don't see why its relevant that they are not included in searches, the articles itself is the only thing that should be searched - so again I see that more as an advantage. It's true that you don't see changes to a category, but you see whenever an article has a category added/removed, so I don't think there's a problem. And about the last bold one - if someone isn't aware of the categories they are off just as well as when we would not use categories. So nothing bad about it - but people who are aware of the categories can use them.

Guess I must be really bored - all I wanted to say in this post is I like categories :) But I can actually see the wiki work without them. It just means we'd have slightly less features and slightly more maintenance work...

--
"Either help out or stop whining" - Evert

AMCerasoli
Member #11,955
May 2010
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Elias said:

all I wanted to say in this post is I like categories But I can actually see the wiki work without them.

Good, then let's move on... ;)

Thomas Fjellstrom
Member #476
June 2000
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I would also prefer to use categories. Lots less work.

--
Thomas Fjellstrom - [website] - [email] - [Allegro Wiki] - [Allegro TODO]
"If you can't think of a better solution, don't try to make a better solution." -- weapon_S
"The less evidence we have for what we believe is certain, the more violently we defend beliefs against those who don't agree" -- https://twitter.com/neiltyson/status/592870205409353730

AMCerasoli
Member #11,955
May 2010
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Oh come on man!.

Believe me, Categories are a LOT of work!
If some one is reading a page and he/she wants to improve it just add a link and start writing, what he/she only have to worry about is to put that link in the correct page, and they do it wrong someone can simply cut the link and past it where it belong, and even change the name if is wrong too.

Believe me, new users are NOT going to use categories, and if they do they're going to do something like: [[Category:Allegro 5 Tutorials]]. and that is not how it works. There is going to be Categories of categories of categories, all order by an absurd alphabetic list. I HATE IT!!

Thomas Fjellstrom
Member #476
June 2000
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Nah. Categories only require putting ONE single link per category on the page itself. Without categories you now have to find all of the Stand Alone pages that link to that page and change them there.

--
Thomas Fjellstrom - [website] - [email] - [Allegro Wiki] - [Allegro TODO]
"If you can't think of a better solution, don't try to make a better solution." -- weapon_S
"The less evidence we have for what we believe is certain, the more violently we defend beliefs against those who don't agree" -- https://twitter.com/neiltyson/status/592870205409353730

AMCerasoli
Member #11,955
May 2010
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What? that is not true.

If you create a page called "Allegro RULES" and you change the name to "Allegro RULES EVEN MORE" "Allegro Rules" is going to redirect you to "Allegro RULES EVEN MORE" until you change "Allegro RULES" to "Allegro RULES EVEN MORE" and then you can delete the "Allegro RULE" redirect.

Caramba... Allegro Rules!

I think I found a way to use: Categories, Pages and Subpages. I'm going to be testing...

EDIT:
@Tomaso:
I deleted the "slash" but the page still there, you can delete it. because the front page says: "255 Articles" and that is not true... there is one article repeated... Mine ;D

Edgar Reynaldo
Major Reynaldo
May 2007
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Thomas Fjellstrom
Member #476
June 2000
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It seems to be a change in some setting, I'm not sure. But if you enter A in the first box and Z in the second, and hit enter, it'll list all the pages in the section you choose.

--
Thomas Fjellstrom - [website] - [email] - [Allegro Wiki] - [Allegro TODO]
"If you can't think of a better solution, don't try to make a better solution." -- weapon_S
"The less evidence we have for what we believe is certain, the more violently we defend beliefs against those who don't agree" -- https://twitter.com/neiltyson/status/592870205409353730

AMCerasoli
Member #11,955
May 2010
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Yes I solved by pressing "2D physics resources" it's like everything is in there.

Thomas Fjellstrom
Member #476
June 2000
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Now that you've already done a fair bit of work in re-jigging the wiki, I only have one real request wrt categories. Please don't remove the category links on pages, we don't have to use them for the main navigation, but it would be nice to have a list some place of all the categories so people can view them all in one easy place. Also, new pages should be properly categorized as well.

--
Thomas Fjellstrom - [website] - [email] - [Allegro Wiki] - [Allegro TODO]
"If you can't think of a better solution, don't try to make a better solution." -- weapon_S
"The less evidence we have for what we believe is certain, the more violently we defend beliefs against those who don't agree" -- https://twitter.com/neiltyson/status/592870205409353730

AMCerasoli
Member #11,955
May 2010
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I'm going to create two paralleled worlds here, basically the same than Wikimedia.

{"name":"603837","src":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/2\/e\/2ee117da61d287387e910a67d1a78153.jpg","w":1199,"h":852,"tn":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/2\/e\/2ee117da61d287387e910a67d1a78153"}603837

So, if you want to surf trough categories and find something easily you can do it, but in you want to surf inside pages you're going to be able too. this way we have the advantages of both...

The thing is we're going to need a page called Allegro 5 and a category called Allegro 5 too, well actually it's like that right now, but I'm going to do it with all pages (if it needs to be a subcategory of course), this is what Wikimedia does, and I think is very good.

What do you say?

Thomas Fjellstrom
Member #476
June 2000
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What do you say?

Pretty much what I was saying. Just don't rip out the existing categories, and try to categorize new stuff you're adding, if you remember :)

--
Thomas Fjellstrom - [website] - [email] - [Allegro Wiki] - [Allegro TODO]
"If you can't think of a better solution, don't try to make a better solution." -- weapon_S
"The less evidence we have for what we believe is certain, the more violently we defend beliefs against those who don't agree" -- https://twitter.com/neiltyson/status/592870205409353730

AMCerasoli
Member #11,955
May 2010
avatar

Ok, But I'm not going to touch Allegro 4 or articles related to Allegro 4 (too much work and too many people to talk with).

Also there are a lot of Categories that shouldn't exist with redundant titles, if their refer to Allegro 5 I'll include it in the new arrange...

This wiki is based only in Categories, almost everything is a new category, I can't find a Sub-Category of something... Shouldn't be that way.

The thing is I'm trying to figure out a way to include articles/documents not only related to allegro, but also things like the "Game Idea Repository" thread that Neils did, but everything needs to be connected. There are a lot of good articles that are "floating" in the Wiki, they're not linked (besides the categories) and even using the Categories navigation system you're not going to be able to find some of them, since they're not linked. The unique way to find some of the articles/documents is using the Search box, or the "show all pages".

So we should create a hierarchy that is beyond the Allegro 5. I included the "Game Design & Concepts" inside Allegro 5 Tutorials but that's just a temporary place. The main category should be something like:

Allegro --- Main Category

 Allegro Versions --- This are Sub-Categories
   Allegro 5
   Allegro 4
 Game Design & Concepts
   Collision detection
   Network programming
   Physics
   More        -------------    In case the list is too big
 Game Idea Repository 
   Armor Ambush
   Battlezone Clone
   More        -------------    In case the list is too big
 Vector graphics
   Vector graphics
   Vector Render API
   Vector gradient fill
   Vector graphic objects
etc...

This way articles/documents are visible and linked, and when someone create a new article/document he will know very well to which category belong. The "navigation" menu will still pointing just to allegro 5 and 4 since they're the main objective of this wiki, but at the same time we'll have hierarchy that allow us to create articles that doesn't need to be related to Allegro itself.

Elias
Member #358
May 2000

There is no need for the "main category". In your examples, the needed categories are: [[Allegro 4]], [[Allegro 5]], [[Game Design]], [[Game Idea]], [[Vector Graphics]]. Then you tag each article with the category or categories it belongs to.

You can then also get a list of articles in a category (Tomasu: how?) if that's needed for the navigation pages.

--
"Either help out or stop whining" - Evert

Thomas Fjellstrom
Member #476
June 2000
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Elias said:

(Tomasu: how?)

I'd have to look it up, but I'm a bit busy till the late afternoon today...

--
Thomas Fjellstrom - [website] - [email] - [Allegro Wiki] - [Allegro TODO]
"If you can't think of a better solution, don't try to make a better solution." -- weapon_S
"The less evidence we have for what we believe is certain, the more violently we defend beliefs against those who don't agree" -- https://twitter.com/neiltyson/status/592870205409353730

AMCerasoli
Member #11,955
May 2010
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Yes I know what you mean, but there isn't a way to make categories looks like this: http://wiki.allegro.cc/index.php?title=Sandbox

They'll be sorted alphabetically.

Elias
Member #358
May 2000

There is, it's what I was just asking Thomas :)

--
"Either help out or stop whining" - Evert

AMCerasoli
Member #11,955
May 2010
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Oh, if there is a way to make categories and sub-categories looks like that, that would be great. That way the main section will be always actualized!.

MiquelFire
Member #3,110
January 2003
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On the sub category, you put it in the category of the parent. Or something like that.

---
Febreze (and other air fresheners actually) is just below perfumes/colognes, and that's just below dead skunks in terms of smells that offend my nose.
MiquelFire.red
If anyone is of the opinion that there is no systemic racism in America, they're either blind, stupid, or racist too. ~Edgar Reynaldo

Edgar Reynaldo
Major Reynaldo
May 2007
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AMCerasoli
Member #11,955
May 2010
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Thanks man, I really need help with my English grammar. I think Windows, C:B and Allegro 5 are a very important topics for newbies. By reading those articles they can pass to the next level. ;D

MSVC is good too, but too much sticky for me. ;)

Edit: Well, I think I'll be back in a few months, need to finish some projects, in the meantime, if you're a newbie or if you are not, remember there is a wiki waiting for you to add or improve some articles it's really easy and remember that by doing so you're helping yourself. See you in "Cleaning up The Wiki Part II" ;D



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