Member idea for the Polycount Wiki
admin
A member recently suggested adding more forum links to the wiki, for those great posts we see on the forums now and then.
This is a great idea!
Unfortunately threads tend to disappear into obscurity. Having them on the wiki makes it much easier to find and use the info.
I've done a bit of this in the past, harvesting links from uber-list threads and other random threads. For example http://wiki.polycount.com/EnvironmentSculpting
It is really great to have a single place to share all these great links, and have it organized by subject. But it's been mostly just one guy, and I've kind of run out of steam.
I've added a ton of members to the wiki, but 95% never really do anything. The other 5% do just a couple edits then disappear.
That's fine, I think I understand. It's the nature of wiki editing, kind of boring work unless you're really really excited about the subject matter.
So I guess this is a call to action of sorts. If you find a cool thread, and you would like to bookmark it for the community (or for yourself!), then post it here. Maybe a wiki member will add it.
If you become inspired to get in there and edit the wiki yourself, go for it!! Instructions here... http://wiki.polycount.com/HowToContribute
This is a great idea!
Unfortunately threads tend to disappear into obscurity. Having them on the wiki makes it much easier to find and use the info.
I've done a bit of this in the past, harvesting links from uber-list threads and other random threads. For example http://wiki.polycount.com/EnvironmentSculpting
It is really great to have a single place to share all these great links, and have it organized by subject. But it's been mostly just one guy, and I've kind of run out of steam.
I've added a ton of members to the wiki, but 95% never really do anything. The other 5% do just a couple edits then disappear.
That's fine, I think I understand. It's the nature of wiki editing, kind of boring work unless you're really really excited about the subject matter.So I guess this is a call to action of sorts. If you find a cool thread, and you would like to bookmark it for the community (or for yourself!), then post it here. Maybe a wiki member will add it.
If you become inspired to get in there and edit the wiki yourself, go for it!! Instructions here... http://wiki.polycount.com/HowToContribute
Replies
If it helps, I've attached a crude bookmark grab from Firefox.
God knows what lurks in it but i assume that its all tasteful.
Media fire linkage;
http://www.mediafire.com/?bw5npyrtbci44xo
I imagine it could get pretty convoluted if every member here added their own concerns willy nilly to the wiki. However if there were a "personal" wiki page in every member's account where one could organize and bookmark threads of interest and perhaps accent that "account notebook" with a blog... Such a feature would be very useful!
frell... that message would go to the admins, right? That's why I made this post, it's better to crowd-source it. If you see something cool, join the wiki, and add it.
lazerus, great! Join the wiki and add the links you think others would like too. Be a filter.
jekylll, wiki members each have their own homepage to do with whatever they like. You just have to join first.
However if we made each forum member automatically into a wiki member I think this would not be a wise idea. We used to have a ton of spam when the wiki was wide open. So now there is a tiny vetting process, I just make sure that person has posted something of interest on the forum, then they're in.
I feel this should read:
It's pointless to say "category" at the beginning of each subject and since we're already in the environment category, that doesn't need to be tacked onto each word, either. Also, your link to env sculpting isn't listed on the environment page. Little things like this make the wiki hard to navigate and clutter things up. I think it needs to be a little more open to editing, or streamlined in that way. Though I don't know if our wiki codebase allows for that.
I've been a wiki member for a while now and I'm absolutely guilty of not pulling my end of work on the project. I'll try to do better from now on.
Keep the links to the threads - but also have a self contained, and polycount hosted wiki version - because there's nothing worse, than looking at a thread with info, with expired image links. (there's a couple of pages I've looked at recently deep in the polycount history that had expired image links
Having the information duplicated + hosted on the wiki makes more sense for preserving the informaiton, and then having a link to the original thread at the bottom.
The wiki code requires each category to be named starting with "Category" :poly105: and since CategoryModeling is not unique to Environment (think Character, Prop, etc.) I added Environment into the name.
You can usually edit links to look simpler. For example this code Modeling will render as Modeling. But... CategoryEnvironment is an auto-generated page, so you can't edit the links!
If you don't use the auto lists function, then you have to manually update that page whenever a sub-category is added, renamed, or removed.
Hosting... I've done this for some things, it's a bit of a hassle but can be done. It can be as easy as printing to a PDF, then uploading that. But the PDF won't save the full-size pics.
Isn't there a easier way to edit and add posts and content? The system as it is right now feels very chunky and not very userfriendly. Maybe that would be a huge workload to swtich but yeah..
1. On an existing page, add a link to your new page. Save the edit, and click the ? in front of your link.
2. Click on "Create new empty page" then click the "GUI Mode" button.
3. Paste in the contents of the forum post. Click the "Preview" button to test, click the "Save Changes" button to save.
Here's what you get. Not such great formatting, but it's an easy way to get started...
http://wiki.polycount.com/OrbCrasher