The crawl.chaosforge.org wiki needs higher standards

[evilmike]

These are just some thoughts I've had. I'm not sure where else to post them but here. If I'm lucky a wiki admin will read this.

A lot of people have a low opinion of the wiki. Many question the reliability of its content. Others (including myself) feel it has more fundamental problems. In my opinion, the wiki lacks standards. I think it should implement a few policies to help this. I've numbered these by order of importance, with the first two being much more important than the other two.

1. Only put factual information on the wiki. Just say what stuff is, what it does, etc. If you feel especially committed, use citations (from the source code). Too many wiki pages have "tips" that are questionable. Occasionally this leads to ridiculous situations, like players thinking they need necromutation to enter the Crypt. Basically, I'm saying there should be actual rules as to what can be in an article. Right now decent articles are mixed in with a lot of nonsense and even fanfiction. I tend not to bother editing the wiki because there is too much of this "strategy" stuff on it. I don't want to create/edit an article only to have it mucked up later by someone adding a guide I disagree with. I also generally don't feel like removing what I think is bad advice, because it's all opinion, and why would mine be any better? I say remove opinion altogether.

2. Put strategy guides and advice in a different namespace (some of these pages could be linked to proper articles at the top, like discussion pages are... but they shouldn't be part of the main article). Same goes with character logs, fanfiction, whatever else people want to post. This way good articles can't be ruined by bad advice, but advice can still be given.

3. Place a box at the top of every article saying what major version it is accurate up to (e.g. 0.8, 0.9, etc). This sort of feature would be immensely helpful, since it would let users know how dated an article is. I've seen this used on the dwarf fortress wiki. This can't be done for every page all at once. For the most part, keeping the wiki up to date will be a losing battle. I don't think a complete, up to date wiki can ever be made unless development of Crawl dies (nethack has a serious advantage here). We'll always have outdated articles, so we might as well explicitly flag them as outdated.

4. For most articles, only document stable versions. Trunk changes too often and too much to document it on a good wiki (we have changelogs for this). Documenting an experimental feature which then gets reverted later (not uncommon in trunk) is one of the worst things that can happen to the wiki. If information on trunk is really that important, put it in a separate namespace. Yes, this means I think there shouldn't be a page on "Octopode" until 0.10 is officially released. There could be a Trunk:Octopode page, though, which gets reviewed and moved to the main wiki when 0.10 comes out.

Note that I don't really expect that these suggestions are going to be implemented, but I'd like to be proven wrong. This is stuff that really has to be enforced. I don't think it can come from regular wiki users, since I'm talking about fundamental rules about how the wiki structured. An admin needs to write it down, put it on a page, and point new editors to it. I'd get more involved if I was confident about guidelines like these being upheld. I think DCSS has a large enough community to maintain a small but high quality wiki, and it's a shame it doesn't. The best source of information we have is Henzell's learndb, and that is mostly filled with crap.

[greepish]

I'm probably one of the few who actually thinks the wiki is superior to the learndb. I know I'm going to be stoned for saying it, but I really think it's true. While the learndb is more accurate, the wiki has far and away more info. In the 2% chance that it's wrong, well it's better than having no info at all. Now for advanced players the wiki is worthless, since advanced players already know the basic stuff, which is why I think it gets the bad rap.

That being said, you're right about a lot of those points, specifically when it comes to advice. I've had a mind to just wipe out large swaths of pages (the entire second half of the felid startegy e.g. is completely general and barely pertains to felids. Or oh god the troll player page. It's awful). Honestly, I think we should really talk about getting together and just doing it.

As far as 10.0 info, the wiki doesn't generally document trunk. Octopodes were one of those weird exceptions. It does have a flag at the top stating that it is in trunk, so it's not like that Trunk:Octopode thing is needed. Same goes for which versio the page pertains to, the boxes are slowly being added, and are on most pages that need them.

Edit: As far as fundamental rule changes to the wiki... it'd be really hard to change them in a meaningful way. E.g., new players should have SOME idea of how to play a felid, and at the very least the first few paragraphs of the strategy section could be useful to someone. Unfortunately, one can't simply make a "don't give advice if you suck" rule.

[XuaXua]

I think the wiki is easier to understand and use than learndb, but the information in learndb is more accurate because it is maintained.

I agree that the wiki entries should be factual, and tactics/opinions should be either in their own section, or as a separated part of the article.

The problem is a numbers game. Some numbers change and keeping up between versions is tough. Maintaining versioned sections and knowing when to retire versions is a big task.

[evilmike]

I'm probably one of the few who actually thinks the wiki is superior to the learndb. I know I'm going to be stoned for saying it, but I really think it's true. While the learndb is more accurate, the wiki has far and away more info. In the 2% chance that it's wrong, well it's better than having no info at all. Now for advanced players the wiki is worthless, since advanced players already know the basic stuff, which is why I think it gets the bad rap.

I agree with you that the wiki is better overall. The learndb suffers from being tied to an irc bot and has a bad ratio of in-jokes to information. That said, the information is generally of a higher quality. What the wiki really has over the learndb is easier access to information, and a lot of potential.

Honestly, I think we should really talk about getting together and just doing it.

You're right, I think. But it would be nice to be backed up by something official. That way if I go around purging articles of contentious advice (or moving it to its own section), people won't just revert it later.

As far as 10.0 info, the wiki doesn't generally document trunk. Octopodes were one of those weird exceptions. It does have a flag at the top stating that it is in trunk, so it's not like that Trunk:Octopode thing is needed. Same goes for which versio the page pertains to, the boxes are slowly being added, and are on most pages that need them.

Oh, this is good to hear. I guess I just figured this didn't exist, since it's either a new feature or an underused one.

Edit: As far as fundamental rule changes to the wiki... it'd be really hard to change them in a meaningful way. E.g., new players should have SOME idea of how to play a felid, and at the very least the first few paragraphs of the strategy section could be useful to someone. Unfortunately, one can't simply make a "don't give advice if you suck" rule.

I don't think the rules would have to be long. It just boils down to this: keep articles factual. Do not post opinion unless it is absolutely agreed upon (eg, ice fiends are dangerous). For felids, acceptable advice would mention that they have very low HP and can't use items, for example.

[XuaXua]

For felids, acceptable advice would mention that they have very low HP and can't use items, for example.

Some of the advice on those pages IS helpful. If you were to consolidate / move advice to advice-laden pages, I'd recommend some sort of link-back. I've found having links to the spriggan gameplay guides actually on the spriggan species page to be very helpful.

The big thing, before making changes, is to determine the list of pages that are needed or are being kept, categorize them properly, and move the excess to a holding category from which you pick / choose / recategorize till the holding category is empty.

[greepish]

Perhaps we could simply divide the species and species/class combo strategies into "Generally accepted advice" and "possible suggestions" or something? That way nobody's going to get pissed off if suddenly massive portions of the strategy sections went missing.

(Also, it's kind of weird, but has anyone else noticed that species and species/combos advice is awful but god advice is nearly spot on? Just kinda weird how it happened that way.)

[banei]

Some of the advice is very good. I believe advice should be separated and standardized, but certainly not removed. There is the discussion tab for deciding the fate of bad or irrelevant advice. I agree with mentioning the version and keeping trunk out (Mantis is for that).

[greepish]

Well there's just so much of it, and not enough editors, that we're going to have to "be bold" with edits as they say so often in wikis. I doubt at this point that talk pages will help in deciding whether each and every cruddy advice for newbies like "troll necromancers are awesome" and "Ogre Strategy: <nothing but an ogre wanderer guide>" should remain in the strategy portion.

[Kate]

The DoomRL wiki separates strategy into a separate namespace, with links at the top of each game information page to the relevant strategy page (if it exists). I like the guidelines they use for it, in terms of treating it a bit more like a talk page than a regular article. Seems like a decent model, anyway.

Are there even any active wiki admins? If anyone here is particularly willing to come up with and enforce an improved set of guidelines, maybe it'd be worth just asking KK to give them admin rights in order to do so. Aside from splitting off the strategy sections, another really important thing in my opinion is to have a strongly enforced template for each type of page. Compare these three pages, as well as the higher-level pages for wands and scrolls, for example. The lack of any kind of consistent template just makes them look messy.

[XuaXua]

I'd do some, but I'm burnt out from the Dev Wiki revision, which I feel was more important and much more out of hand.

[evilmike]

The DoomRL wiki separates strategy into a separate namespace, with links at the top of each game information page to the relevant strategy page (if it exists). I like the guidelines they use for it, in terms of treating it a bit more like a talk page than a regular article. Seems like a decent model, anyway.

This is good, and the crawl wiki ought to adopt it. Makes sense too considering they're hosted by the same guy.

[TwilightPhoenix]

Current wiki vs. learndb on a fictional monster, the Super Hydra (aka these are not real entries).


learndb

1. <stats here> It hurts. Run.
2. Also known as a roflcopter.
3. jimmythedungeoncrawler says he keeps them as pets on Crypt:4
4. Not to be confused with Supahydra, a player with 1337 wins



Wiki

<random info box template with stats that may or may not be accurate>

This bad boy appears on Lair 10 as the guardian of the hydrataur vault. Flaming weapons will cut off its heads, so it can be safely meleed with a dagger of flaming.

<link to randomcrawler's Guide on killing Super Hydras with Magic Darts while playing a NaBe>


At least, that's personally how I feel. Though, since anyone can edit the wiki, it's fixable. I have no idea what to do about learndb (or why people love it so much, it usually doesn't help me a whole lot), but that's not what this topic is about.

I agree about keeping the main pages purely factual and having a separate "advice and strategy section", which should have some sort of disclaimer like "The advice contained herein is not guaranteed to work and may even get you killed."

[XuaXua]

At least, that's personally how I feel. Though, since anyone can edit the wiki, it's fixable. I have no idea what to do about learndb (or why people love it so much, it usually doesn't help me a whole lot), but that's not what this topic is about.

<3 x 1000

[greepish]

Okay, so I talked it over with flun (seems to be the guy in charge) on the main page discussion, and looks like tomorrow the whole "treating strategies as separate, semi-talk pages" is going to happen unless anyone objects. The question atm is just which pages need to be have a completely separate strategy page linked to it, and which pages should just have a strategy header with signed comments in that section (like the dev wiki). Example: Monster strategies obviously donj't need a full page. My gut reaction is only species strategies really need an entirely separate page for strategy.

[flun]

Hi guys, Flun here. I was given admin rights by KK to deal with spam a few weeks ago.

At the moment KK is quite busy getting ready for the GDC in March. As such we wont be able to do any major system upgrades or install extensions to the wiki until then. However, that would not stop us from fixing and structuring the content.

I do not have much experience managing wikis, but I am all for the suggestion to separate the factual information from the strategy and advice. I would be willing to help establish some simple guidelines and enforce them.

[Wereox]

I think the main problem with the strategy guide things is, yeah, they are opinions, but you can't get anything better and good ones are useful. I feel like the best solution would have to revolve around some kind of authorship, eg, connect strategy guides with their creators, and allow people to agree/disagree/comment on advice.

Or to put it another way: a guide to felids written by consensus of unknown people is not super useful - I have no idea if it's nonsense or not. It is actually more helpful for me to see
(a) One particular person's felid guide (and it's fine to have multiple different ones), so if I know a particular user is knowledgeable I can trust their information more. And if multiple guides disagree, at least I know what I should look into/experiment with myself.
(b) Discussion - if one person says it's a great idea to level Stabbing as a felid and another person says that's dumb because Unarmed stabbing uses the crappy damage bonus table, I can at least know I should look into this more (or just try both myself).
(c) Feedback - to use the felid stabbing example, if a lot of people comment saying that this doesn't work well, I know to be suspicious of the advice. If a lot of people agree with "don't bother with much stabbing," that helps me figure out who is correct.

That said, this may be hard to implement, and while the wiki could be better it is still not worthless (although I have learned to check both the wiki and learndb, frequently the wiki has some stuff and learndb has nothing at all).

[Flaming Corpse]

I think these criticisms of the wiki are too harsh. There are certainly pages that need improvement, and there is some bad advice. Those pages can be fixed. If you know they're wrong, fix them yourself. Overall, it's pretty useful, and the advice is pretty good. It's much better with the advice than without -- to put it one way, a manual is not a bunch of reference tables.

I've edited plenty of game wikis with lots of strategic advice, and there are sometimes disagreements over what strategy to use. It's really not that hard to hash out differences of opinion, or to present both opinions, unless one or both editors are jerks. And that's where admins come in: jerks get booted.

The wiki doesn't need rules, it just needs more good players willing to edit it. Setting rules on a wiki doesn't magically cause work to happen. Want a better wiki? Register an account and hit the edit button.

Incidentally, where does it say that you can't tackle the Crypt without Necromutation?

And by the way, I fixed up the wand of confusion page. Next page you see that isn't quite right, fix it yourself, or just ask for help on the main talk page if wiki editing is new to you.

[greepish]

Well at this point it's not just "bad advice", people are literally rambling on the page, some organization is flat out needed. For example, the troll page is simply a huge mess: the suggestion to adopt kiku, which could be summed up with "kiku is great for extended as the corpses can keep you fed, and torment resistance is convenient for melee focused players like trolls" is sprawled over five paragraphs, with much of the info there needing to be on the actual kiku page.

Anyways, so here's what I'm going to start doing. I don't have super wiki code knowledge, so I'm just going something similiar to "backgrounds":

-Add a bullet on the front page under species, linking to a "species strategy" page
-List all the species strategy pages on that page, and post some guidelines for what to do with them on that page.
-Copy/paste all the current strategy onto the new pages, and link the species page to the strategy pages
-Whittle down unnecessary info (ex, the kiku advice earlier that belongs on the god page, not the troll page), remove really bad advice, and add comments to the questionable advice, hopefully to get that aspect rolling

As far as quidelines to be added on the species strategies page, here's what I'm thinking is good:

-These pages will treated as semi-talk pages. Add advice as normal without a signature, but if you want to comment on something simply add a normal indented and signed comment. Do not get into major arguments: if you must, bring it to the actual talk page of said strategy article. (basically summing up DoomRL's page)
-Do not add advice that should go onto a god or background strategy instead. Saying how a god/background augments or deals with a species' strengths and weaknesses is good, but elaborating on advice that could work for any species using that background or god should not go on the species strategy page

Anyways, I'm going to start adding the necessary pages right now. Just say whether you think anything else is needed or whether there's something wrong with thte above.

Additionally, eventually all the pages with long info should probably be divided up like what flun did to the troll page.

[XuaXua]

The first steep should not be to edit the wiki.

It should be to MAP the existing wiki layout and determine which pages are necessary and core and which pages are not. Create a new map of the wiki and work from there checking off each page completed from the list. Then create templates for each category and enforce those on a per page basis while updating the data.

[greepish]

I really only have basic wiki knowledge, so I'm just doing what'll work with what I know. The way background's/background strategies pages work looks fine to me, although I suppose I should start adding the category: strategy article tags right now.

[flun]

The first steep should not be to edit the wiki.

It should be to MAP the existing wiki layout and determine which pages are necessary and core and which pages are not. Create a new map of the wiki and work from there checking off each page completed from the list. Then create templates for each category and enforce those on a per page basis while updating the data.

What is the best way to map the existing wiki layout? Are there any examples that we can base a new layout off of?

[greepish]

Okay so I'm thinking, if we're going to have a strict layout for the strategy articles, like the species articles, it'd go like this (adapted from flun's troll page):

-Most suited classes
-Alternative classes
-Skill management
-Gods
-General

[flun]

I went ahead and put up a rough outline of how we might organize the wiki to separate information from strategy. Anybody is invited to help with the organization.

[Grimm]

Given that not many people edit the wiki but a lot of people read the forum, one idea would be to discuss and finalize text here before putting it on the wiki.

[greepish]

Okay so after re-organizing some of the articles into above categories, I think I'm just going to take out skill management and dump it into "general" as a lot of races don't need it.

Edit: Okay, I moved the larger species strategies to their own pages. I'll get around to moving the smaller ones and possibly making some new ones for the blank ones.

I've noticed that absolute #1 problem with strategy articles is redundant info. E.g., in a spriggan enchanter guide, it gives branch order and generic advice on equipment. Well whoopdie do, this info applies to anyone, and branch order recommendations even has it's own page. I'm going to get to work and quite simply eliminate all of this redundant junk on the strategy articles.

Edit Edit: Okay most species/background articles I'm trimming over 70% of the info, nearly all of it's redundant, hopefully this will make updating them for each new release of crawl easier. If authors really want their original article, they can go back and copy the older version into their namespace, but I think the actual wiki articles themselves deserve to have some standards.

Edit Edit Edit: Okay it looks like We need to add three strategy articles:

-Early game strategy
-Mid game strategy
-Late game strategy

To deal with these massive levels of redundancy in strategy articles. Basically 10 articles might say "learn control blink and haste it pwns for this character" Well yeah, it should be learned by ANY spellcaster by late game. For now I'm simply removing all generic advice.

[Pteriforever]

Which do you think is the WORST page on the wiki? Only serious pages count.

I nominate http://crawl.chaosforge.org/index.php?t ... rroundings.

[greepish]

The MuWz was pretty bad before I chopped it up. It was so long it literally gave the 32 kilobyte warning while editing. For a page that could probably be summed up with "learn meph, go kiku, go sif"

[greepish]

Okay, I've just made the "basic" character building strategy, divided into three categories. Please add your comments directly to the page (or flat out change things if you're better than me):

http://crawl.chaosforge.org/index.php?t ... _Game_Tips
http://crawl.chaosforge.org/index.php?t ... _Game_Tips
http://crawl.chaosforge.org/index.php?t ... _Game_Tips

Now I can finally reduce those strategy articles.

[XuaXua]

What is the best way to map the existing wiki layout? Are there any examples that we can base a new layout off of?

It is all about categorization.

A wiki consists of two things: pages (content/data) and categories (sorting sections).

Get the list of all pages.
Get the list of all categories.
Get the list of what pages exist in what categories.
Get the list of all redirect pages (armor for armour, etc.)

You now have your map.

Now you need to analyze and everything is a judgement call.

RENAME
Start with renaming pages and categories prior to elimination.
Any category or page with a obtuse or unnecessarily long name should be renamed.
Names should be understandable and short if possible.

SAVE ORPHAN PAGES
Put any orphan pages into categories.
Create appropriate categories as needed.

REMOVE CATEGORIES
Any category with 1-2 pages should be eliminated outright (remove it from all pages referring to it).
The pages should be recategorized if they do not already have multiple categories.

REMOVE PAGES
Capable wikis are known to have automatic list generation based on topics/categorization or keywords.
Go through and remove any page that is a list of data that is maintained elsewhere. A good example would be Starting Books. I don't know who this page is for, but it is a side-effect page where you need to maintain data in both the primary page (Wizard) and the individual entry here (Books a Wizard starts with).

If this sort of specific-data list page is required, then what needs to be done for this sort of list page, is a wiki tag that allows you to tag a portion of the source page, and the resulting list page uses that data to dynamically generate the list. This requires some wiki tag / plug-in knowledge and possibly admin rights, but it consildates data update duties to one place.

PAGE HELP
Most, if not all, pages should have the plug-in that shows what other pages refer to it. This will save a lot of time from page coders.

...

I have more ideas/tips, but this should get you started.

[Flaming Corpse]

Where besides the wiki is a list of starting spellbooks maintained?

[greepish]

Well at the moment I'm most concerned with innacurate/longwinded data. The dev wiki sorely needed what you've done XuaXua, but I don't think the chaosforge wiki has such extreme organization problems. If someone actually has the time, page renaming is definately needed, though, but I have no idea how to do that. If it is simply creating a new page and moving the old page to it, I don't have the rights to do that, and I don't feel like adding a million delete tags.

[XuaXua]

Where besides the wiki is a list of starting spellbooks maintained?

Define "maintained".

And I explained (broadly) how a proper plugin use can resolve multiple maintenance areas for identical information.

[XuaXua]

Well at the moment I'm most concerned with innacurate/longwinded data. The dev wiki sorely needed what you've done XuaXua, but I don't think the chaosforge wiki has such extreme organization problems. If someone actually has the time, page renaming is definately needed, though, but I have no idea how to do that. If it is simply creating a new page and moving the old page to it, I don't have the rights to do that, and I don't feel like adding a million delete tags.

The two wikis use different software. Categories are created dynamically by the system based on whether a page has been categorized in said category. To remove a category, all you need to do is remove references ( links) to the category from any page that links to it.

To delete a page, just remove all information on it and save, or at worst save it with a link to the category "delete me" and point an admin at that category.

[lucy_ferre]

I've edited the wiki since DCSS v0.5 iirc and I'm a mod there. Every once in awhile there would be a sudden surge of interest in fixing the wiki, then things go back to the way it was. People lose interest quickly and 2-3 main contributors cannot maintain the wiki. And spam became a major problem recently, which is part of why I left.

I think it's pointless to keep trying to fix the wiki. Everybody complains about it's reliability and very few are willing to contribute.

[greepish]

Well spam just recently got fixed. Somebody made took out the wiki's auto register and eventually it's supposed to have a more permanent fix for spam.

[Flaming Corpse]

Unfortunately, this discussion is largely moot until the spam problem is fixed. Apparently the admin just dealt with it by disallowing any new registrations, which means nothing discussed here can be implemented except by people who already have an account on the wiki. Real fixes (a software update) have been promised in the near future. Fingers crossed.

Providing the software updates actually happen, here's the only way to fix the wiki:

* When you see wrong information (or some other needed improvement), hit the edit button (if need be, register an account) and fix it yourself.
* Failing that, post something on the talk page of the article so someone else can make the change.
* Failing that, post something in this thread.

Be specific about the change(s) that need to be made. If you just want to complain or criticize, go ahead, but the wiki will not magically improve as a result of it. If on the other hand you suggest a change that can be made on the spot, such as:

* "This page is missing the format (template) used on similar pages"
* "This information is wrong/out of date, and should be removed/replaced with this advice"

this can actually be implemented.

Suggestions that cannot be acted upon immediately, such as "this should be updated by a bot", are belling the cat, and if you're not prepared to implement it yourself, nobody else is going to either.

I've edited lots of wikis, and as wikis go, the Crawl wiki is not a shambles. It needs a bit of restructuring (all projects do, periodically) and more people willing to fix or add small stuff, and then it'll be pretty solid. Pitch in.

[flun]

Unfortunately, this discussion is largely moot until the spam problem is fixed. Apparently the admin just dealt with it by disallowing any new registrations, which means nothing discussed here can be implemented except by people who already have an account on the wiki. Real fixes (a software update) have been promised in the near future. Fingers crossed.

Automatic registration has been disallowed, but I am still able to manually create accounts for people. Obviously we don't want this to be a permanent solution. We are basically waiting for KK to have time to do some real fixes, including installing any plugins that would help the editing process, likely after March .