I'm not heart'ing Wiki at the moment
Aug. 30th, 2007 12:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
azuriteWhile it was great to hear the other day that people actually enjoy using and adding to WikiFic, sometimes I feel like I'm the only one that ever adds articles. I doubt it's because people don't have the knowledge, and it's not like WF's rules are so stringent that I'd delete ANYTHING. In fact, most people have added some pretty good quality info that I wouldn't have known about otherwise!
What pisses me off is that the Yu-Gi-Oh Wikia, which primarily focuses on the TCG/OCG as opposed to the fandom aspect of the series, is much larger- it's got over 13,000 articles, while we're teetering near 200. Most of those articles are for cards, of course, and all the subsequent data like trivia. It's not that it's larger and obviously has more people working for it-- it's that everything is made so easy for them because they're hosted on Wikia, a "make your own wiki" site. It takes all the work and learning out of it. If I'd known about Wikia years ago, before I started WikiFic, I might have put it there, but I didn't. I also don't like ad-supported anything, so I've done everything on my own domain.
That's part of the reason why anything is a long time coming with WikiFic-- it takes a LOT of trial and error, searching, uninstalling and reinstalling... I'm always having issues, and I don't have a website support team to back me up. I have to turn to the MediaWiki.org Discussion pages, the Mediawiki-l mailing list, and similar places. Even my own web host can't help out with MediaWiki beyond enabling things via SSH and the like. And I'm on a shared host, because I can't afford a private one, which means many of my editing options are limited.
It looks like the YGO Wikia has a LOT more extensions that either don't exist for the general MediaWiki public (which is also infuriating) or require some "heavy duty" editing, like adding *.pl files. I'd love to be able to take advantage of rotating templates for featured cards, JavaScript for displaying pages succinctly, timelines, and so on, but it's tough doing it on my own. Looking at the Wikia, sometimes it seems hopeless, even though I look at WikiFic and I realize I didn't create it for people looking to verify card info or get strategies-- it's for fic writers and readers that should know about the series they're involved with. You'll probably never see anything on how astrology and blood types tie into Yu-Gi-Oh at the Wikia, but those articles (mainly because they're mine :P) are at WikiFic. I'd like to think that can/does apply to a lot of other articles too, but we have SO FEW at this point...
*sigh* I just wish I had more involvement, I guess. I wish that for a lot of my sites. Maybe I'm more of a team-player than a lone wolf than I thought.
What pisses me off is that the Yu-Gi-Oh Wikia, which primarily focuses on the TCG/OCG as opposed to the fandom aspect of the series, is much larger- it's got over 13,000 articles, while we're teetering near 200. Most of those articles are for cards, of course, and all the subsequent data like trivia. It's not that it's larger and obviously has more people working for it-- it's that everything is made so easy for them because they're hosted on Wikia, a "make your own wiki" site. It takes all the work and learning out of it. If I'd known about Wikia years ago, before I started WikiFic, I might have put it there, but I didn't. I also don't like ad-supported anything, so I've done everything on my own domain.
That's part of the reason why anything is a long time coming with WikiFic-- it takes a LOT of trial and error, searching, uninstalling and reinstalling... I'm always having issues, and I don't have a website support team to back me up. I have to turn to the MediaWiki.org Discussion pages, the Mediawiki-l mailing list, and similar places. Even my own web host can't help out with MediaWiki beyond enabling things via SSH and the like. And I'm on a shared host, because I can't afford a private one, which means many of my editing options are limited.
It looks like the YGO Wikia has a LOT more extensions that either don't exist for the general MediaWiki public (which is also infuriating) or require some "heavy duty" editing, like adding *.pl files. I'd love to be able to take advantage of rotating templates for featured cards, JavaScript for displaying pages succinctly, timelines, and so on, but it's tough doing it on my own. Looking at the Wikia, sometimes it seems hopeless, even though I look at WikiFic and I realize I didn't create it for people looking to verify card info or get strategies-- it's for fic writers and readers that should know about the series they're involved with. You'll probably never see anything on how astrology and blood types tie into Yu-Gi-Oh at the Wikia, but those articles (mainly because they're mine :P) are at WikiFic. I'd like to think that can/does apply to a lot of other articles too, but we have SO FEW at this point...
*sigh* I just wish I had more involvement, I guess. I wish that for a lot of my sites. Maybe I'm more of a team-player than a lone wolf than I thought.
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no subject
Date: 2007-08-31 01:08 am (UTC)The additional trouble is that the card game and the fandom are miles apart, and the card game is getting new input on a steady rate and the fandom... welp, it's either move on to GX or review, review, review.
And the info end of Yuugiou is hard. Tis why I mostly stuck with the visual aspect of things. I think I put up the few info pages I had made up on here already. If not, I can go slap it in so you'll at least have that added in.
no subject
Date: 2007-08-31 02:14 am (UTC)But you are right re: the progress of the OCG/TCG vs. the anime or manga series. I don't think GX drew as many of the original series fans as was hoped. But the original series still leaves a lot of loose ends, and that's a big part of why I think it's both still alive fandom-wise and why WikiFic is necessary.
But fandom-wise, more people know about KnK than do about WF. While the two aren't ever meant to compete in any fashion, I do appreciate your input A LOT. :D
no subject
Date: 2007-08-31 02:24 am (UTC)Hey, acutely, if you want to try and drum up some input, pop over to KnN's forums and see if you can get some interest going. We have a small collection of know it alls and theory spinners that would probably love to get their hands all over it. :D
Re: GX: The trouble was that GX had no idea what it wanted to be. It started off pretty good, being a bit like early manga/first series. Then it tried getting serious and failed, tried going 'LOOK! CONNECTIONS TO THE ORIGINAL!' and failed, and then just went off into random crack-addled directions and took a piss on existing plotlines and characters. (Why yes, I am bitter about poor Kaiser Ryou ><)
Maybe we should try rounding up the remnants of the fandom together. I know I keep meaning to work on KnN but never really get around to it cause of either real life or lack of motivation. Mayhaps if we started pooling resources, we could get a minor resergance of activity or something.
Partly relatedly: Hales ever get back to you about PtDC?
no subject
Date: 2007-08-31 02:52 am (UTC)But I will head over to the forums to see what I can find there. And while I haven't been doing anything GX-related outside of reading the manga as it comes out in SJ, from what I have heard, it makes me shake my head and sigh. Yu-Gi-Oh! may not have been the pinnacle of realistic teen drama or whatnot, but it didn't exactly have "dimensional hopping" and Kaiba agreeing for complete weirdos to stage tournaments at the D.A.
But yes, I'm all for pooling resources and breathing some life into the fandom again. I'm still active, just as you are-- torn in many places, and busy.
As for Hales, no I never did hear back from her. I assumed it was because someone else had gotten the position...
no subject
Date: 2007-08-31 09:21 pm (UTC)I watched the first few seasons before GX just got too WTF. (Space dolphins dueling robots on a moon of Jupiter did it for me.) Really a shame, all things considered.
I added you onto my AIM, if you spot me on, give a chat. :)
And re: Hales: She said she couldn't get a hold of you for it. She said she wanted to do two mod slots and I got the other, but she was waiting to announce til she heard from you. And now she's vanished again. Wondering if it's a lost cause...
no subject
Date: 2007-09-01 12:28 am (UTC)Also, I'm rarely on IM, but when I am, I'll be sure to give you a buzz. Are you still FranTheNut?
Hales-- not sure how she tried to get ahold of me, but last I heard was via an LJ comment. My email's everywhere, so unless she'd been looking for me via IM, I'm not sure why she couldn't have gotten ahold of me, unless an email ended up in my SPAM folder or somesuch. *headscratch*
no subject
Date: 2007-09-01 01:33 am (UTC)Re: Hales: Who knows *sighs* When I see her on next I'll have to poke her about it.
no subject
Date: 2007-09-03 05:28 am (UTC)Hello!
Date: 2007-09-01 11:27 am (UTC)I'd like to know how long your Wiki is (was?) up for, to be at 200 articles. The big assumption you're making is that we suddenly got a legion of editors overnight. Fact is, the Wikia was stale for up to six months after it's creation.
Also, we don't have a lot of extensions. What we -do- have, are a few scripts we've manually added to the main skin CSS and Javascript files.
Bear in mind, it's taken us more than 2 years to get to 13,000 articles (And that may be boosted even higher, if we can decide how to separate fan-made content from 'official' content).
The Wikia was initially designed as a Netrep clone; just focusing on the TCG. It grew to encompass the OCG, Video Games, Anime, Manga, and Books.
That said, everything on the Wikia is licensed under the GFDL; This is primarily why I chose Wikia to help host it, since they use that license. It means all written content is free to be used by anyone for any purpose. There's even a database dump on offer, so others can get what we've done, and make their own revisions to it.
If you need some help getting your Wikia set up and/or configured, I can help with that (Since I've managed to get a stable one working on a VMWare Windows XP Install - nifty way to get a secure server.)
Re: Hello!
Date: 2007-09-03 05:08 am (UTC)WikiFic's age-- not sure. It's at least 2 years, but I've moved domains and done fresh installs repeatedly, so I'm not quite sure how to know just how old it is.
Also, checking your Special:Version page, it DOES seem like you have a lot of extensions, hooks, and the like-- though many of those may come packaged by default with Wikia, which I didn't know about until someone told me about your Wiki existing alongside mine, which I'd always thought was the first Yu-Gi-Oh wiki, since I had done extensive searching for it before working to establish it on my domain. Because I use MediaWiki standalone, I don't have any of the Wikia extensions that you might have access to, which is what frustrated me-- since I've always been under the impression that everything Wiki is meant to be open-source and not the least bit proprietary.
If you wouldn't mind, there are lot of things I'm wondering how Wikia has accomplished-- for example, the multitude of boxes on the front page hidden with "[show]" and then clicking them to open up the generators/link boxes and the like. That seems like an edit to the Common.js, but I'm not sure. It's not that I want WikiFic to be a copy of Wikia (far from it, in fact), but some of the functionality, if that's able to be duplicated, it would be extremely helpful for my site.
I don't have any intention of setting up a Wikia anytime soon, especially since I've already set mine up (on a Linux server, btw) and it has been up for a while-- changing everything might be difficult, and, looking at the Wikia page, I doubt they'd approve a second Wikia for Yu-Gi-Oh anyway, even if our aims are a bit different.
If you don't mind me asking you a few questions about how Wikia does some things (if you know), then I'd love to stay in touch. Otherwise, I do apologize for sounding like I disliked Wikia in anyway-- I don't. In fact, it's great, but I felt bad that it was so much more accomplished than anything I'd done, and to me it felt like we'd been around roughly the same amount of time. I'd like to know your strategies for having gotten the mass editors you have.
Re: Hello!
Date: 2007-09-03 04:14 pm (UTC)If you really want, you can pull the code from the YGOWiki's copy, after all, it's good to share.
The extensions merely save time, I think we have 'rollback', 'youtube' and 'edittools' which we use the most, which primarily save time. We also have one that enables us to pre-load a template in an article, which was a God-send for new people editing. It also enabled us to add TCG and OCG cards at record paces, and we still use them to create them when they appear. Same goes for Manga and Anime/Video Game cards.
I tried to get a Wikia going for Fanfiction/User-made cards, but I was simple told to start it at the Scratchpad Wikia, and see how it took off.
Re: Hello!
Date: 2007-09-03 07:00 pm (UTC)I also have the Input box extension, which I've been using for TCG/OCG/anime and manga cards as well; I also adapted it for articles for the Shipper's List, and I might try and adapt it for Character Profiles as well.
Re: Hello!
Date: 2007-09-03 07:47 pm (UTC)As far as I can tell, the code for it is in MediaWiki:Common.js and MediaWiki:Monobook.css. It revolves around "NavFrame", which provides the collapsible functionality.
What's the link to your Wiki?
Re: Hello!
Date: 2007-09-03 11:05 pm (UTC)Re: Hello!
Date: 2007-09-04 01:31 am (UTC)It's obvious that the Wikia is the undisputed resource for TCG/OCG and Official data pertaining therein.
Your Wiki could actually hold 'updated' card effects, in line with UDE's text changes. As you've probably noticed (or not) it's nigh impossible for us to include "unofficial" content, since we pride ourselves on getting accturate information quickly.
Re: Hello!
Date: 2007-09-04 03:36 am (UTC)But yes, I'd have no qualms with having "updated" info, errata, and things like that.
Re: Hello!
Date: 2007-09-04 04:55 pm (UTC)How would you feel about fan-made cards? They're technically "fandem" material, which is why I've only allowed a few -sparing- Proxy images. How would you feel about expanding the idea to include fan-made images of all cards with updated text? The artwork can be copied across easily. This also would include make Anime, Manga, and Video Game cards, as well as fan-made cards that don't exist. What do you think?
Re: Hello!
Date: 2007-09-04 07:46 pm (UTC)Also, fan-made cards fall perfectly within the realm of "fandom," so I think for the most part, they'd be appropriate on WikiFic, though I'd probably have to create a new Input box mod for them so they don't get confused with real cards (TCG/OCG, anime, manga, or video game)
Re: Hello!
Date: 2007-09-04 09:05 pm (UTC)EffectMonsterTable
AnimeEffectMonsterTable
VideoEffectMonsterTable
NormalMonsterTable
AnimeNormalMonsterTable
VideoNormalMonsterTable
RitualMonsterTable
AnimeRitualMonsterTable
VideoRitualMonsterTable
FusionMonsterTable
AnimeFusionMonsterTable
VideoFusionMonsterTable
SpellCardTable
AnimeSpellCardTable
VideoSpellCardTable
TrapCardTemplate
AnimeTrapCardTemplate
VideoTrapCardTemplate
You'll also need the preload templates
NormalTemplate
EffectTemplate
RitualTemplate
FusionTemplate
SpellTemplate
TrapTemplate
As well as the OCG-Only ones
OCGEffectMonsterTable
OCGNormalMonsterTable
OCGRitualMonsterTable
OCGFusionMonsterTable
OCGSpellCardTable
OCGTrapCardTemplate
As well as a few misc ones:
MiscTable
MangaOtherCardTable
GodCardTable
For some video-game cards that only appear in one video game, we usually use a seperate template, prefixed with the set number used for the promos given with that game (For example, Tag Force would be GX02, so a Spell Card from that game would use VideoGX02SpellCardTable).
IM;s
Date: 2007-09-08 10:09 pm (UTC)Re: IM;s
Date: 2007-09-09 07:51 pm (UTC)