Wiki haaaaalp!

Eric Chadwick

I would really love some help with our wiki. Anyone have a little time here and there to spare?

We moved last summer to a new wiki software, which really speeds things up a ton (the old one was hella slow!), but unfortunately that broke most of the images and links too.

I just fixed this absolutely awesome tutorial from almighty_gir...
http://wiki.polycount.com/wiki/Roguedevelopmentdiary
... and I was thinking how much more there is on the wiki, that just needs a little luvin'.


Here's an example of a broken page:
http://wiki.polycount.com/wiki/ModelingBathroomTiles

And here's what it looked like on the old wiki:
http://oldwiki.polycount.com/ModelingBathroomTiles


To find broken stuff, just start at the main page and start diving into what you're interested in, until you find empty pages or links that are red.
http://wiki.polycount.com/wiki/Polycount

Or type in a search term for something you're interested in, and see if it goes anywhere.


I'm only one guy, and I'm way behind. Besides, I'm working long hours these days as a freelancer trying to make ends meet, plus on top of that I'm trying to keep my portfolio updated with new work. So who has time, right?

But I think a community resource like this has a lot of value, so it's worth investing time in, now and then.


Oh also, I thought it would be great if people could post links to threads on the forum with good tutorials or breakdowns they've seen recently.

We could upload these to the wiki to keep track of all the cool learning materials people are making and sharing here.

Like this one by Faf, which I missed the first time around, only saw it recently in someone's Pinterest.

cryrid

Every time I see the syntax required to format a wiki page, I get a shiver down my spine. But I'll still try to chip away at some pages here and there. You have my sword.

PhattyEwok

I just signed up on the wiki and and are all aboard to fixing a lot of these pages. I noticed there is a lot of linking back to the forum. Should we be putting those links on their own page with excerpts from the post?

ZacD

It would probably be a good idea to avoid linking to the forum, just incase the post gets edited, moved, or deleted.

throttlekitty

Oh man, I ran out of steam pretty quick on this, sorry mate! I'll try and make time in my schedule to get more in there.

Eric Chadwick

Linking to the forum is faster, but yeah there's link rot, so excerpting the best bits would be great. Especially the images, because these die quicker than text.

cman2k

I'm haaaaaaaaaaaalping.

Eric Chadwick

Woot!

Lucas Annunziata

We've got to get a dark colour scheme on there. The brightness of the pages have seriously turned me off.

Eric Chadwick

That's something I would love help tackling. A new skin. And it would be great to have, no doubt. MediaWiki has documentation how to do it, if anyone's interested.
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:Skinning

cman2k

A custom polycount skin would be awesome, but it's also worth noting that you can get a dark version of the default skin easily, as an option.

http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Skin:Darkvector

Eric Chadwick

Hey thanks for the link, good suggestion.

I did some quick edits of the CSS, going to ask cheeseplus to upload this.

pior

In passing, a very minor broken link report :

On this page
http://wiki.polycount.com/wiki/HairTechnique

the link to the panda pdf is broken. It should be :
http://wiki.polycount.com/wiki/File:Squirrelyjones_fur.pdf

It's not much, but I hope this helps !

Eric Chadwick

Every little bit helps. Thx pior.

Noors

I can't log on the old wiki. Could you give me the access ? Copy pasting pictures informations would be less tedious. Thanks !

Eric Chadwick

Check your PMs, Noors.

Although I found it easier to right-click and use Save As to get the filename.

Note: the images are already there on the new wiki, just the page code didn't make the transition.

Though other files like PDF and OBJ do have to be re-uploaded.

Thanks again for the help!

Noors

Thanks !
Yeah noticed.
It's more for website links of images authors.

I've seen that pictures were embedded in arrays. Any particular reason for that ? or may we directly put file:blabla.jpg ?

Eric Chadwick

Yeah, you can just use image:mypicture.jpg if u like.

If you want a gallery though, of side by side pics, you'll need to use a Table.

I think attribution is important, so this is better...

frame|Image by [[url]http://ericchadwick.com[/url] Eric Chadwick].

You can see all the image code stuff in the Editing Help.

http://www.mediawiki.org/w/index.php?title=Help:Images&mobileaction=toggle_view_desktop

passerby

Ya I can help out when I have some time. Do I need a account for it, or will my forum account work.

Eric Chadwick

You need a wiki account, which you can make easily.

Oh also, don't worry much about fancy wiki code. It would just be great to get functional images & links again. Someone else can always clean stuff up later.

Noors

We broke it.
Yeah, not so familiar with wiki syntax. i did attibution, with the same line you wrote, like the old wiki.
I use none for formating tho, pic is on the left, with text on top and bottom.
frame|none| Image by [[URL]http://ericchadwick.com[/URL] Eric Chadwick].

Eric Chadwick

No worries, you're doing great, imho.

I think the Normal map page has always been too big. It probably should be broken up into smaller pages. It's a freak of nature.

cman2k

lol agreed...got to that page and left it open so I could get back to it later. That one's a beast.

Eric Chadwick

It's also quite out of date, forum threads are much more current and relevant.

Noors

Yeah, i don't know. It has the advantage to summerize a lot.
But i get it's a hell of a work to maintain, especially with the stone age syntax. We use a google thingy at work, editing is much more smooth.

Normal map page is probably the one i've visited the most. And seeing how people still have troubles with normal maps, it's an essential reference/reminder.

And then there's the issue of pictures disappearing from threads. Maybe polycount could host pictures ?

Eric Chadwick

I'm all for uploading forum images to the wiki, as a way to preserve them. That's worked pretty well so far.

Just make sure that when we upload pics or files, we add a credit line directly under the item, so the original authors get credit.

And we can always remove an image at the owner's request. (though we've never had to do this on the wiki so far)

gloriousczar

I'd like to help but I'm honestly pretty of clueless about this whole interwebs stuff, do you have to know any code (CSS?) and if so, is how complex? Because I wouldn't mind learning to help out if there are resources available.

Eric Chadwick

Nope, don't have to know CSS.

There is some simple wiki code, but it's not necessary. It does help you make nice formatting though, which makes things easier to read.

Every time you Edit a page, you'll see this Editing Help link at the bottom:



That shows you all the wiki syntax.

If you dig a little further into that page, you can get to the help pages for Images, Tables, etc.
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Images
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Tables

Also feel free to ask questions here on the forum.

PhattyEwok

I noticed the search is severely lacking. You can type in something very specific that has link after link on that subject and even search for the main header of that page but it still won't come up on the search results. Is there a way we can tag pages so they are returned when searched for?

Eric Chadwick

Show us an example?

It probably means we need to make a new page for that term, or rename an existing one. Hard to say without seeing an example.

PhattyEwok

Sure! so here's a link to the foliage page under environment art http://wiki.polycount.com/wiki/Category:EnvironmentFoliage

Now here's a search for foliage
http://wiki.polycount.com/w/index.php?search=foliage&title=Special%3ASearch&go=Go

-edit- added a redirect on the category foliage page to a new foliage page and it shows up fine in the search in engine. The above link will send you straight to foliage now that I've changed it where before it just showed a list of search results.

It doesn't even come up. This is mostly true for all the categories. BTW the site hierarchy is a bit confusing. Everything is linked through categories and inherit some attributes per page of the their parent but then you go to edit that page and there is nothing there. Its all a bit confusing. I'll keep trucking away fixing broken links for now.

-Edit-
After reading through the other thread posted awhile back I guess the only way to solve the category problem is to redirect links to new pages?

Eric Chadwick

The old wiki used categories a bit differently than the new one.

I think the categories need to be empty pages, like Wikipedia does.

And we should delete all the redirects. They were there to try to support old links from the forum, but that's a clunky mess. Kill em all!

Eric Chadwick

Yeah so we shouldn't have Redirect to Foliage on a Category page. Better thing is to add the Category to the Foliage page. I did this, the search still works great. With the Redirect there you couldn't see the Category page itself.


The Glossary page

http://wiki.polycount.com/wiki/Glossary
vs.
http://wiki.polycount.com/wiki/Category:Glossary

I think this is kind of bad, sticking them all on one page. I think each term should be its own page (as it was already), and we should use the Category:Glossary to list them automatically. Thoughts?

Noors

Yeah category:glossary is more readable and requires less scrolling.

Noors

Also i was thinking, maybe there's a way to auto-upload pictures ppl post on polycount server, so they can't get lost ?
Either by auto uploading and auto change links on threads,
or forcing people to upload all pictures they post on polycount serv, with their own gallery, where they can see every pics they've posted. They had this on a cg forum i was.
I don't know about impact and consequences, but we all hate super tutorials with pictures missings.

Eric Chadwick

Maybe we can make the forum attachment system easier to use, so people would use it more. But I suspect people will continue to use their own websites or generic image hosts.

Forcing them to only show locally-uploaded images is not the solution I think. Also just auto-uploading www content to the wiki gets a bit messy with image rights.

For now, we should ask the author first, before uploading. Then upload to the wiki, and make sure there's a credit line linking back to the author of the image. Otherwise we run the risk of infringement.

Think of when you want to use someone's concept. It's always best to contact them first.

Noors

Yeah, the 2 main issues with attachement are the thumbnails, and the fact you have to log in to see them, so yeah, i never use it

Eric Chadwick

A small update, we now have a dark default skin, courtesy of cheeseplus!
http://wiki.polycount.com/wiki/Polycount

Also are also devoting extra time to fixing and updating the wiki in the next few months, so you should see the wiki get more and more robust.

If there's anything you would like to see on the wiki, shout it out!