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Poll - Should we have a wiki? (1 Viewer)

Should we have a wiki?


  • Total voters
    20

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We've implemented "wikiposts" (you can make your post editable by anyone) and collaborative resource descriptions (same as posts), but some things just feel like they require a more robust solution. e.g. kissassist & mq2melee manuals, or documenting parts of MQ2 core. The downside is spreading information out further (discord, forums, resources... wiki?), and there'd be another piece of server-side software to maintain.

I'm pretty handy with wikis and would absolutely love to use a semantic extension (imagine all the beautiful forms which would lead to auto-generated lists!), but I want to make sure this is something we'd use. So, do you want it or should we keep documentation within resources/forums?
 
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Personally i am not a super fan of the resource stuff, i like the idea, and its well done, but for some reason i just dont feel comfortable with it, so a more simple wiki like solution maybe would help with that, i dont know.
 
I'm a bit on the fence. A well planned, thought out, edited and actively maintained wiki is fantastic. One that "grows organically", is driven by knee jerk reactions, has low quality articles and stale content, or any combination of those is a waste of time at best and a confusing pile of misinformation at worst.
 
While I'm normally in favor of wiki and wiki type stuff, I've found with between mq2 as a whole, kissassist, macro specific things, *writing* macro specific things - there is a ton of information and people don't have the time to even try looking for it.

take this yaulp situation. there were many posts about it that folks could reference, but people were still asking about it and/or not even doing anything about their toon yaulping for no reason.

for many folks Italk to, mq2/vv/kiss can be serious information overload - and they don't even bother, because information is either: spread out, outdated, incomplete, or they don't know how to find it (like my TLO example I often use).

having a wiki, I don't feel like will help the people who are falling in between the information gap, it would be mostly for the folks (me included) who already to and look for information in other places.

maybe a macroquest2.com wiki type mirror located here might be handy --- having a wiki here, but still having to go elsewhere to find information would defeat the purposes imo

I'm personally, and likely biased, of the opinion that people looking for information and speaking to each other about it generates a level of community that a cold, impersonal wiki can't provide.

for me, as a moderator, and someone who tries to spend as much time as possible helping newer folks - having a resource that I could quickly and easily reference in posts would be incredibly useful - this is where i submitted the idea for #callbacks which would link to some of our more frequently used answers so we could still give a personal touch

Hey @eqgamer82,
sorry you're having X issue, a few other folks have had that issue recently, here is a link with some information for you.
#callback-link-to-solution
 
I am a big fan of wiki style for the reason that somebody can write a guide/entry and if there is a mistake, it can be edited by someone else instead of having to look 13 posts later for that someone else's correction.
 
We've implemented "wikiposts" and collaborative resource descriptions, but some things just feel like they require a more robust solution. e.g. kissassist & mq2melee manuals, or documenting parts of MQ2 core. The downside is spreading information out further (discord, forums, resources... wiki?), and there'd be another piece of server-side software to maintain.

I'm pretty handy with wikis and would absolutely love to use a semantic extension (imagine all the beautiful forms which would lead to auto-generated lists!), but I want to make sure this is something we'd use. So, do you want it or should we keep documentation within resources/forums?

User experience wise I don't think the editable posts on this forum work as well as a straight wiki. Wiki are just SO GOOD at linking knowledge together and providing a low barrier of entry to edit and maintain documentation. That being said, I also concur with @Sic that there is already a lot of information out there that we don't want to duplicate. It'd be frustrating to have RG just end up out of habit duplicating the MQ2 documentation. If a wiki is chosen, then I'd suggest some strong monitoring of it and a clear set of what information we'd like to have. Maintaining a quick lookup to solutions or workarounds of known problems/play styles would be useful. The 'Yaulp' problem is a good example as a ton of people asked the question but maybe wouldn't if the answer hit them in the face when they came to the site? (Though arguably this may still not be the case).

I've been relatively happy with DokuWiki (I've run it before to maintain a lab notebook long ago). I preferred this as it works with all flat text files so I had a reduced security exposure to the common web application bugs. Of course it's up to you all to determine what sort of optimal set of software you want to run with a given security posture. *grin*

Update: There's a few other decent EQ wikis out there that are mostly good but do have some stale information. Assuming EQ lasts another long time, it'll be important to occasionally go through and cull outdated info. Boring but important work. Having a way to offer redcents or some such may be another good way to to incentivize the effort?
 
There are currently 4 resources on core MQ2 only one of which is actively maintained (Changes.txt) but given that the one that's maintained isn't in a great format and also contains outdated information the further back you go, I like the idea of a RG wiki.

I think it's okay to duplicate information that exists elsewhere in this case. As long as the wiki is actively maintained (which is what I think would happen with a RG wiki) then eventually you end up being the premier source of information. Moderate, Maintain, and make sure it's clear, concise, and most importantly: up to date.

It does take a lot of work to organize though, and I agree that it can't just be organic growth.
 
There are currently 4 resources on core MQ2 only one of which is actively maintained (Changes.txt) but given that the one that's maintained isn't in a great format and also contains outdated information the further back you go, I like the idea of a RG wiki.

I think it's okay to duplicate information that exists elsewhere in this case. As long as the wiki is actively maintained (which is what I think would happen with a RG wiki) then eventually you end up being the premier source of information. Moderate, Maintain, and make sure it's clear, concise, and most importantly: up to date.

It does take a lot of work to organize though, and I agree that it can't just be organic growth.
I can agree with these ideas for sure. My point was just about diluting and particulating information over even more places.

Ideally someone who comes to RG/VV should never have to go elsewhere for any information - and based on that 100% we should have a wiki, but I still think my points have consideration.

And as always, I'm happy to assist with any and all projects RG related
 
Hey @eqgamer82,
sorry you're having X issue, a few other folks have had that issue recently, here is a link with some information for you.
#callback-link-to-solution

Are you suggesting templates for common replies? If so good idea that I just added to the todo list, sort of a forum version of chat !bangs
 
Are you suggesting templates for common replies? If so good idea that I just added to the todo list, sort of a forum version of chat !bangs
it was this thing HERE

kind of like how we have ! commands on discord
instead of me typing out a big response when someone says they can't get kiss to rez anymore I can just type
hey @so-and-so check out this
!kissrez
and the bot spits out the stuff I already put together
allows better articulated responses with links and code examples without having to spend a bunch of time grabbing all that info

I'm not familiar with chat !bangs specifically - but glad it sparked an idea!

Sorry for the de-rail
 
I don't really like the resources thing, yes it does pull in the discussion thread but it just kinda feels janky IMO
Sure a wiki is great, we already have the mq2 wiki
Perhaps instead of having to maintain one you just use the gitlabs one?
Not sure if you can do an integration to gitlabs with whatever user-db is being used here
 
I don't know if a wiki would be good or not but it would be great to be able to log in and check a couple categories like Current Issues or Suggestions and Improvements to see what is current. Newest posts often brings up things from years ago with a couple recent sentences that won't make sense unless you read the whole thread. Who wants to read 20 pages of stuff that doesn't apply anymore just to figure out the single thing that does?

Just pinning a popular solution or two to the top of each thread would be a great help.

I think part of the reason many people don't find information on their own is they find threads many pages long and have to read through a crap ton of not helpful things just to pick out the single thing they are looking for. Or worse the thread is filled with out of date information and they make things worse. You do that a few times and then maybe you stop bothering. Archiving out of date info would be where I would focus efforts. Without a process to keep things up to date anything you implement wiki or otherwise is doomed to become full of information no longer relevant and therefore not any better than what is there now.
 
Poll - Should we have a wiki?

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