Brainstorm Wiki

[dolphin]

I was just over at the wiki, and I noticed that it was difficult to find (or not find) what I was looking for, Racial HP. I ended up doing a search and deciding that it wasn't there, but I'm still not sure that it isn't already there in another wiki post, or under another name. Forgive me if I am wrong, but it seems that the wiki is disorganized. Does it seem that way to ya'll? If so, do you have any ideas for a logical wiki hierarchy?

{edit} Please don't turn this into a "the wiki sucks!" post. Identifying problems, if any, providing possible solutions, and not getting upset if someone else doesn't like your idea are the goals here.

Here's the link to the Brainstorm Wiki: https://crawl.develz.org/wiki/doku.php?id=dcss:brainstorm:start

[KoboldLord]

I think you can't find the page because it doesn't exist. In which case, you should make it. If you make an extra page in error, somebody will be along at some point to merge them. That particular page seems like a sensible addition to me.

A brainstorming wiki is really an entirely different animal than a normal wiki, which collects facts and arranges them for viewing. Brainstorming wikis are meant to have fundamentally temporary articles that get discussed and resolved, and then sent to the article graveyard. The effort spent to organize it will be made obsolete in the next release cycle, which will sent a whole host of pages to the graveyard and spawn many new articles that would require new organization.

[dolphin]

Another question; how do you add a namespace on a page (like https://crawl.develz.org/wiki/doku.php?id=dcss:brainstorm:misc:start) that has an alpha index, and get the namespace inside the index?

[galehar]

@koboldlord: the brainstorming wiki isn't that temporary. Ideas come faster than they are coded, so wiki pages tend to hang around for a while and rot. And I agree that it's messy. Suggestions for a better structure are welcome. Cleaning up of long pages too.

[danr]

Frankly, it seems to me that a forum like this would be better for brainstorming than a wiki. But the devs want to use a wiki, that's fine.

On the wiki it's hard to tell who's saying what, what's the original proposal, it's just really confusing. On a forum, comments follow a regular order etc.

[dolphin]

It is really confusing, but I don't think it has to be. A rubric for posting ideas, comments, and deleting old stuff on the wiki would help. The primary disadvantage of a forum is that a forum resides in the time-domain (newest stuff first), and is more difficult to tie down to a logical hierarchy. Sure you can sticky stuff, but some things on the wiki go for a long time without being updated, and there are so many of those pages, you'd have to go through several pages of stickies before you got to ongoing discussions.

That said, it IS much easier to have a discussion on a forum. I wonder if you could tie a forum discussion to a wiki page, so that the wiki page would like more like a To-Do list, and the actual discussion would be at the linked forum discussion. You'd probably need a new forum section for that, though.

[omndra]

Only thing i think it needs is a game Mechanics category to be organized.
Most of the time when i am trying to look up things like "weapon speed" i have to do a search for it.

Theres no category for it but all the stuff seems like its there.

[dolphin]

After looking at the Dev wiki and at the Manual, here's what I think (read "wishlist"):

• Alphabetizing is not helpful in the upper categories, though it may be helpful at the lower levels. Links should be grouped by what ideas they are related to. Possibly 3 or 4 headings should emerge:
  • Character/Player - Species, Mutations, Backgrounds, Effects, Magic
  • Dungeon - Religion, Monsters, Branches, Vaults, Items
  • Interface - Weapon Speed, Achievement System, Internal, Tutorial
• There should be extensive cross-linking. If a page doesn't fit nicely into one category, give all (or most) relevant categories a link to it. Similarly, there should be a "See Also" list at the end of a page. Cross-linking should be highly encouraged, not an 'if you feel like it'. This could potentially reduce the amount of restating ideas on the wiki (for example, I think it has been noted about 3-4 times that a flame puff destroys all ice armour)
• The Dev wiki should contain only proposals. Discussions should take place on forum. While this visually splits up the two connected things (proposals and feedback), it would make both the proposal itself much more readable and the discussion more extensive. It would also possibly reduce the amount of restating proposals/comments on the forum/wiki (A new forum section devoted to the Dev wiki feedback might be necessary).
• Users should be urged to include which version they are using in the user tag (like this: —v0.7.2 evktalo 2010-10-12). This would allow easier identification of old, cluttery ideas that have long been implemented/abandoned. Also, I don't think that including the clock time is as useful as including the date.
• "@!PAGE@" should be renamed to "USE THIS F****** TEMPLATE!" or something similarly enthusiastic. Also, the template should include a standard usertag, and instructions for relevant cross-linking.
• Having a page describing a rubric for graveyarding/deleting old stuff would be very helpful.
• The List of Things that will NOT be done should be prominent

On a side note, I still don't know how to include a new page in the alphaindex app.

[galehar]

I totally agree that discussion should take place on the forum and then ideas go to the wiki. We can link back and forth. The wiki is in dire need of structure and cleaning up. We devs rather use our time coding than formatting the wiki. If any of you guys feel like it, I think we could really use the help of a wiki admin (or several). Anyone can help. Don't feel shy about editing other people comments and ideas, that's a wiki! The history is always there if needed.

[galehar]

Development wikis are good for developers. Forums are good for players. A wiki makes it much easier for a developer to find information about the topic they're working on. A forum makes it much easier for someone to get their idea out and visible.

Sure, but it requires someone putting on the wiki the ideas discussed on the forum. And my point was that it also needs someone maintaining the wiki, because it's getting more and more messy and hard to use. I'd rather use my available time coding than editing the wiki, that's why I'm asking for volunteers.