WIKI: We now have a useable wiki...

Rxke · 2005-08-02 01:34:01

Idiom, great! the wiki can be found by clicking the link in my sig.

BTW couldn't we set up a usergroup, call it Wiki taskforce team or something like that? This thread is becoming a bit errr unwieldy, unorganized, heehee...

there could be a range of topics there: stuff to add to the wiki, outreach, etc...

re: Bradbutry: he's less the 'hard/technical sf' guy, but more poetical, but still worth a look, some of his stories go into the human psyche aspect in a rather reftreshing way.

Or have a look at Clark's description, which is rather good.
Thanks for biting the bullet, and tweaking the content, Clark!

Oh, and someone, anyone give an opinion on the 'alternativefrontpage' I cobbled together? It's not fleshed out, only some content linked, only some chapters listed, but it would be waste of work if it was no good....

Josh Cryer · 2005-08-02 01:47:59

I was just now going to integrate a spellchecker into the wiki, but the approach that the guy is using isn't going to work with our setup (and it doesn't work in some browsers either). I think I can write a php script to call aspell on the server and throw back a general "corrected words" list, but I dunno how I am going to go about it right now.

John Creighton · 2005-08-02 01:55:05

I have a lot of spare time, or rather single minded determination, so as soon as I figure out where the wiki is I will happily trawl through all the really ancient topics.
Alternativley I could start a thread of 'recyled wiki entries' and somebody else can put them in. I do wish Astronautix was on a wiki we could flog. Save a lot of time that would.
Also we need a biography section to seperate people from their main works. Like Zubrin should have his birthday, pioneered mars direct(link), founded the mars society(link), co-founder pioneer-rocketplane(link).
BTW. who is Ray Bradbury? Is he like KSR or Clarke?

Here is the link to the wiki main page:
http://www.newmars.com/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

Rere is a link to the recent changes in the wiki:
http://www.newmars.com/wiki/index.php/S … entchanges

To cread a new topic, you type in the name of the topic after the last slash. So for instance if I wanted to create a topic called, Gas core nuclear reactors, I would type:
http://www.newmars.com/wiki/index.php/Gass_core_nuclear reactors
Don't worry about case, when the page is created it will be created with a particular case but the case can be different on the link Internal links are just the topic name surrounded by two square brackets on either side topic. So for instance to link to Gass_core_nuclear_reactors you would type [[Gass core nuclear reactors]]. For an external link to gass core nuclear rector you could type:
[[http://…/Gass_core_nuclear_reactors Gass core nuclear reactors]]. Inside the brackets you can use the _ interchangeable with the space character but if you type in the url in the navagation field of your browser you must use the underline character for space.

Some things that can be done to contribute: look at the topics that are already there, see what changes should be made, see what words you should be linked to internal topics and surround those with a double set of square brackets. See what words are linked to pages that aren’t created yet and start those pages. Look for good external links for information on each topic and add those links to the external link section of the page. Look for old discussion threads that you think has material worth summarizing and keeping and see how that can be incorporated in the wiki. Think of something you might want to add to the wiki that is not there and add it. There are all kinds of things that can be done to make the new mars wiki better and it will come to gether in baby stems. The more people we have picking away at it the better the product.

Josh Cryer · 2005-08-02 02:00:27

You'll be happy to know that I got the math functions to work properly in MediaWiki, John. Here's a link to your "broken" page. Works fine: http://www.newmars.com/wiki/index.php?t … oldid=1457

John Creighton · 2005-08-02 02:06:43

You'll be happy to know that I got the math functions to work properly in MediaWiki, John. Heres]http://www.newmars.com/wiki/index.php?title=Orbital_plane&oldid=1457]Here's a link to your "broken" page. Works fine.

Woot!, Awsome. I'm glad I delayed doing math stuff. This will make it so much easier.

Josh Cryer · 2005-08-02 02:09:27

BTW, I can, and probably will, add this same functionality to phpBB.

But I have to sleep now. You really might want to consider a client-side spell checker until I can get something integrated into the wiki, web browsers like Opera and FireFox have plugins, and I'm sure a google search for "aspell browser plugin" will work out for you.

Josh Cryer · 2005-08-02 02:18:03

Sorry, another thing. Preview! It's there for a reason. The nature of wiki's mean that all old revisions are stored in the database. Unfortunately, as I just talked to some MediaWiki people, revisions are stored in their entirety (not using "diffs" as I assumed). So bad revisions are just cluttering the database. Don't worry about it for now (I can always go in and clean it up), I'm just saying.

John Creighton · 2005-08-02 02:45:41

Sorry, another thing. Preview! It's there for a reason. The nature of wiki's mean that all old revisions are stored in the database. Unfortunately, as I just talked to some MediaWiki people, revisions are stored in their entirety (not using "diffs" as I assumed). So bad revisions are just cluttering the database. Don't worry about it for now (I can always go in and clean it up), I'm just saying.

Could we write some sql querry that will check for multiple old entries by the same poster over a short period of time and delete the oldest one of the group. I do use preview but I still end up with multiple entries in a row because after I've posted it I realize more mistakes or decide to do more revisions. Also after working on something after a certain period of time you want to have something to show for it. It makes the wiki look more active. Speaking of making the wiki more active it would be really cool if you could see what users are reading the same page as you. Perhaps there could be a PM button so you could PM them to see if they are making any changes.

Another feature that would be cool is if we had some kind of scrol window. I was looking at Rixe alternative main page and I like the short poem by clark that was in the fiction subs section of the alternative main page. If we had a scroll window we could put longer pomes in amongst the other sub sections and not affect the flow. A scroll window could be also useful for explaining code without drowning the explanation with lines of code.

Anyway, awesome work setting things up and of course this is just a wish list.

Rxke · 2005-08-03 05:54:16

I find it a bit strange one is able to edit other people's userpages...

I mean, I could go on a rant and/or deface someone's personal profile or whatever he/she put up there, and if that person doesn't check that page regularly, it'd be up there for ...

I did a test of this. put "test" up at John's personal page.

Josh Cryer · 2005-08-03 09:58:34

Well, let's hope no one is a jerk, shall we?

Usually it's no bother, and often what you'll find on other wiki's is users filling out the userpages of other users they like but they know have no time or interest to fill it out. I think that this is a nice thing.

After a little while I'll give you guys delete capablities. I have two nice candidates so far.

I'm really encouraged by the level of additions to the wiki, even if it's not super professional quality stuff, it's still great. I got to seriously put some templates up there, but my HTML/CSS abilities suck bad. Anyway, yeah. I'll do it, and show you how to do it. (I'm kind of picky about out LaTeX setup on the forums and wiki, though, they use the same software but in two different configurations, and I want them to both work the same exact way, heh.)

John Creighton · 2005-08-03 10:59:25

Well, let's hope no one is a jerk, shall we?
Usually it's no bother, and often what you'll find on other wiki's is users filling out the userpages of other users they like but they know have no time or interest to fill it out. I think that this is a nice thing.
After a little while I'll give you guys delete capablities. I have two nice candidates so far.
I'm really encouraged by the level of additions to the wiki, even if it's not super professional quality stuff, it's still great. I got to seriously put some templates up there, but my HTML/CSS abilities suck bad. Anyway, yeah. I'll do it, and show you how to do it. (I'm kind of picky about out LaTeX setup on the forums and wiki, though, they use the same software but in two different configurations, and I want them to both work the same exact way, heh.)

Speaking of editing user pages it would be alright if it showed up on the recent changes sections. I always check all recent changes so anyone trying to deface the bard will be caught quickly and we can move quickly to ip banns or temporary restriction of members not in a certain group from editing the wiki.

On another issue the no wikki tag is pretty useless. I thought it would be a good way to display pomes and source code but line breaks don't work in it and it doesn't use a mono spaced font.

edit: I see in recent changes on the wiki where my profile was edited by Rxke. So we will be able to keep an eye on these kinds of changes.

John Creighton · 2005-08-03 11:11:23

Well, let's hope no one is a jerk, shall we?
Usually it's no bother, and often what you'll find on other wiki's is users filling out the userpages of other users they like but they know have no time or interest to fill it out. I think that this is a nice thing.
After a little while I'll give you guys delete capablities. I have two nice candidates so far.
I'm really encouraged by the level of additions to the wiki, even if it's not super professional quality stuff, it's still great. I got to seriously put some templates up there, but my HTML/CSS abilities suck bad. Anyway, yeah. I'll do it, and show you how to do it. (I'm kind of picky about out LaTeX setup on the forums and wiki, though, they use the same software but in two different configurations, and I want them to both work the same exact way, heh.)

John Creighton · 2005-08-03 14:17:40

I noticed even with the links that sometimes it is case sensitive and sometimes it is not. This neads to be fixed.

Rxke · 2005-08-03 14:50:25

that case-sensitivity thing is a tricky one... In the help chapter I 'transplanted' there's some stuff how it works in search... Weird stuff, I tellya.

John Creighton · 2005-08-04 00:02:25

One big thing I have been doing is going though this page:
http://www.newmars.com/wiki/index.php/T … ace_Travel
And trying to insert some content (mostly stuff from the top of my head) about each thing I have linked to that page. So far I have made it down to arc jets. Once I get all those things filled in I might try writing something more substantial again. However, I think filling in the gaps is a priority because I hate gaps.

clark · 2005-08-05 21:40:44

I contribute.

John Creighton · 2005-08-06 11:55:05

I contribute.

http://www.newmars.com/wiki/index.php/F … ars_Movies
Well, done Clark. You right much better then me.

Rxke · 2005-08-06 14:33:22

You right much better then me.

For the record: I am the spell-checker-deprived foreigner!

John Creighton · 2005-08-06 15:01:12

You right much better then me.

For the record: I am the spell-checker-deprived foreigner!

You don’t need to be foreign to have weakness in grammar and spelling. Anyway, on another note I copied all the news article links from SMART-1 into the page I have for SMART-1 in the wiki.
http://www.newmars.com/wiki/index.php/SMART-1
I like electric propulsion, I think I’ll do JIMO and deep space 1 next.
For anyone crazy as me to go and mass copy links form new mars threads you may find this tip handy.
http://techrepublic.com.com/5208-6247-0 … ID=1668273

Stormrage · 2005-08-22 05:34:34

The Wiki is empty and the layout kinda looks crap.

Why not make it look like this one

http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Main_Page

John Creighton · 2005-08-22 07:01:59

The Wiki is empty and the layout kinda looks crap.
Why not make it look like this one
http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Main_Page

I think white on black is easier to read then black on white. As for it being empty more people can help out. Too see all the pages go to:

http://www.newmars.com/wiki/index.php/Special:Allpages

Rxke · 2005-09-11 07:08:48

What about a direct link to the Wiki on the frontpage of the board? Or is it still too much in 'Beta'?

Josh Cryer · 2005-09-15 13:47:36

Good idea.

That's another reason I hated to see you "go" Rxke. You have made significant contributions to the wiki!

Rxke · 2005-09-15 14:12:30

Not so. All i did was putting up empty coathangers and 'wikifying' entries from other people.

John's the one who's contributing like mad.

Rxke · 2005-10-27 15:19:12

What about a direct link to the Wiki on the frontpage of the board? Or is it still too much in 'Beta'?

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Re: WIKI: We now have a useable wiki...

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