Datafile section and wiki's

[Zeus Thunderbolt]

We all know that Sully is working his butt off with editing all ~500+ pages of the main wg.com fan fiction site. It would be safe to assume that most of those pages are datafile's and most of the editing would be updating various statistics and some display formatting and other such laborious tasks. Something that is distracting Sully for his main responsibility around here...saying "No Comment " at every instance and writing more fan fics. So in order to facilitate Sully in doing his main job, I propose that using a wiki-style database would be an apt way of helping out in managing datafiles and even the fan-fics themselves.

Sure, it would take a bit of work setting the thing up and learning the wiki "in's and out's", but I do believe that the final pro's do outweigh the initial cons.

You don't need to have everyone here enabled to edit the wiki-database, just a few people could transfer the datafiles across, using a pre-determined style guide, and Sully (after spending most of the weekend playing on his xbox (or writing more fics) and other such pursuits a man of hard work and leisure would get upto) can come along and do some polishing up before allowing the datafiles to be published live.

the cons of doing a wiki would be:

1) time: to learn how to set up a wiki and how to optimise it for the wg.com

2) effort: to do 1)

the pros:

1) time: improves the rate in which datafile's can be created, edited by the fanfic writers, and searched and viewed by the viewing public

2) effort: once the general knowledge of wiki style rules are known, the effort of making wiki entries is reduced compared to doing the same thing using html. The back-end of the site work shoulnt be that different from managing a phpbb system (plus it could add another string to Sully's computer techie bow(think of the possibility of promotion and/or more money for knowing something that one of your other colleagues in the workplace doesn't know how to do!!)

3) collaboration: wiki's are tools for collaboration. From my experiences at going to Uni (twice), groups using wiki's (or other such collaboration tools) not only boosts output, but depending on its purpose, the groups creativity too.

4) creativity: Not only datafile information could be on this wiki, but some of us could contribute speculative datafiles regarding newly seen zoaforms (speculative being the keyword since it would be the main fanfic writer's having the final say so), reports about various fic characters that the military would be making about each of the main cast.

5) the datafiles section is meant to mimic something that a clandestine organisation like Chronos or the ACTF would use. A wiki is a more logical way of representing such information since it is more likely that in these days, governmental organisations use such "secure" wiki's to hold vital information about people, other organisations, locations and technologies.

6) There is a way of making the css stylesheet for the database look more like the wg site we all know and love, so there is not a big problem in that regard. I would go as far as saying that it would make the datafiles page look more like something a military organisation would use.

7) the web-standards that wiki's employ would make the site more usable without much effort (even usable on iPhones and other such mobile devices) (*it would also remove that black-on-black problem on the w'kar site in a pinch*)

More likely than not, Sully would not have the time or inclination at the present for such an undertaking, but its something to think about for the future after he has finished re-editing all of the fics up to Seven Days of Hell...

[Sully]

We all know that Sully is working his butt off with editing all ~500+ pages of the main wg.com fan fiction site. It would be safe to assume that most of those pages are datafile's and most of the editing would be updating various statistics and some display formatting and other such laborious tasks. Something that is distracting Sully for his main responsibility around here...saying "No Comment " at every instance and writing more fan fics. So in order to facilitate Sully in doing his main job, I propose that using a wiki-style database would be an apt way of helping out in managing datafiles and even the fan-fics themselves.

Sure, it would take a bit of work setting the thing up and learning the wiki "in's and out's", but I do believe that the final pro's do outweigh the initial cons.

You don't need to have everyone here enabled to edit the wiki-database, just a few people could transfer the datafiles across, using a pre-determined style guide, and Sully (after spending most of the weekend playing on his xbox (or writing more fics) and other such pursuits a man of hard work and leisure would get upto) can come along and do some polishing up before allowing the datafiles to be published live.

the cons of doing a wiki would be:

1) time: to learn how to set up a wiki and how to optimise it for the wg.com

2) effort: to do 1)

the pros:

1) time: improves the rate in which datafile's can be created, edited by the fanfic writers, and searched and viewed by the viewing public

2) effort: once the general knowledge of wiki style rules are known, the effort of making wiki entries is reduced compared to doing the same thing using html. The back-end of the site work shoulnt be that different from managing a phpbb system (plus it could add another string to Sully's computer techie bow(think of the possibility of promotion and/or more money for knowing something that one of your other colleagues in the workplace doesn't know how to do!!)

3) collaboration: wiki's are tools for collaboration. From my experiences at going to Uni (twice), groups using wiki's (or other such collaboration tools) not only boosts output, but depending on its purpose, the groups creativity too.

4) creativity: Not only datafile information could be on this wiki, but some of us could contribute speculative datafiles regarding newly seen zoaforms (speculative being the keyword since it would be the main fanfic writer's having the final say so), reports about various fic characters that the military would be making about each of the main cast.

5) the datafiles section is meant to mimic something that a clandestine organisation like Chronos or the ACTF would use. A wiki is a more logical way of representing such information since it is more likely that in these days, governmental organisations use such "secure" wiki's to hold vital information about people, other organisations, locations and technologies.

6) There is a way of making the css stylesheet for the database look more like the wg site we all know and love, so there is not a big problem in that regard. I would go as far as saying that it would make the datafiles page look more like something a military organisation would use.

7) the web-standards that wiki's employ would make the site more usable without much effort (even usable on iPhones and other such mobile devices) (*it would also remove that black-on-black problem on the w'kar site in a pinch*)

More likely than not, Sully would not have the time or inclination at the present for such an undertaking, but its something to think about for the future after he has finished re-editing all of the fics up to Seven Days of Hell...

I've being thinking about a Wiki, but in the end the pros and cons for me resulted in staying with HTML.

Pro

1.) This is the biggest one of all. HTML can be configured for off-line content. All the pages in WG-Fic (and later Star's Guyver page which will adopt the new template if I think it's a success) are deisgned for off-line storage.

You might ask yourself... umm is that important? the answer is simply "OMG Yes!". When I'm sitting on a train with bugger all signal and I want to know what in Gods name did I name some random character or remember which version of spelling I'm going to use for an offical Zoalord, what do I do? I use an off line version of the website that is stored on my laptop.

The latest update will contunie this thrend and will also have a character profiles section (it will not be populated by the time of the next update, but it will be worked on a lot of the next while getting updates each time I upload a rewrote fan-fic).

2) It's just as easy to convert a Word file into a HTML file as it is into a Wiki.

3) You get more control over the structure of the deisgn and can make it more invidual to suit yourself. If you've a Wiki, you've the Wiki look.

4) I'll still have to do the editing... in other words it'll just take as much time.

5) Microsoft Wed Esssentials is like using Word, it's easy to use.

6) All a Wiki is, is a PHP based site, basically a fancy messageboard. It does make things a little easier when done but having the data on the site compete with a database that holds this messageboard isn't something I want to do.

In the end I couldn't see a reason to invest the time needed to understand using a Wiki for the site, and with 1) being the most important thing to me it never won out.

As for W'Kars and other websites being converted to a Wiki that are in WG.com... thats more for him to deside but again knowing Allen he'd still go for a Dark Anubis like colour scheme and you'd be back where you started Zeus T

[*zeo]

Well, you could create an offline Wiki...

http://lifehacker.com/291518/build-your ... -wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia: ... e_download

http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/4-free-too ... a-offline/

Could be useful to have access to whatever you may need on the go...

http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2007/ ... converter/

http://www.uni-bonn.de/~manfear/html2wiki-tables.php

http://distributedresearch.net/blog/200 ... iki-markup

Just takes a fair bit of space on your drive and the bandwidth and time to set it up.

[Sully]

Simply put, the time I'd have to invest in learning about it, then convert what is already there, = no. you've basically just said, forget 3 weekends of work, I'm starting all over again (I won't be doing that, more so as I like the new HTML template for browseing that section of the site).

I've invested raw cash into having software to do HTML and to update the look of the existing site, so forget a WG.com wiki, it's never going to happen (more so as I don't just have 1 site here, but multiple sites and they also have their own design from their orginal creators. I want to keep as they were without adverts or any of that crap or a converted wiki look).

[McAvoy]

I toyed with the idea myself for Naval History (design, specs, battles, etc) but I decided not to because of the sheer amount of work it would involve. Wikipedia is naturally unrealiable because any person can update or modify a page on something. For example I could go to the page on the Moon and change it all so I could say it was made of cheese. Now naturally some admin/mod/proofreader/whatever will see that and change it back within hours or maybe a day. But the point is anyone can change it to reflect their interests and opinions. Someone would have to devote time to make sure someone doesn't jack up the wiki pages.

I doubt anyone serious with this site will not do that of course. But what about others?