Dwarf Fortress Wiki:Current events

New engine

Possibly might have been nice to put some comments here about the new engine. I hope I'm not just talking to ghosts.

For all it's technical issues - it is very easy to find out how to do things using mediawiki, because, there's that great big mediawiki people can go look at when they need to work something out.

Secondly, I am finding the look of the "new" wiki... hard do read. Possibly the default "skin" is a crock of shit? (Are you doing your work using the default skin? If not - isn't that a hint?) Thirdly, I tried to sign up. Still no response?Garrie 06:05, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

I honestly did not expect the number of people playing around with the new wiki engine as there has been. So, you're not talking to ghosts, and this wiki will remain primary and editable for quite a while still (probably until sometime after the new release). I'm still working on enabling functionality in the WYSIWYG editor on the new wiki, which will hopefully make it easier to use. As a random aside, the new wiki is a bit harder to use for people who are used to mediawiki, but significantly easier to use for people who have never used a wiki before in their lives. If you don't like the new skin, feel free to modify it. I just played with it a little bit - the community modifiable css file is at http://new.df.magmawiki.com/*css . I deleted your user account just now, as I'm not sure what broke with it. I'll look into logs, feel free to recreate it :V. --Briess 06:52, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

The side margin is currently huge - much less space to work with, will stretch articles way down. (Nice graphic of the kitten butcher - puts the "b" back in "subtle".) Maybe we should set up a specific page where people can discuss this, if any are interested? --Albedo 07:09, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

I shrunk the side margin quite a bit just now. Let's see how that works. Discussion is fine by me. --Briess 07:23, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Well, apparently there are a few other missing features that were advertised as implemented, namely including templates and redirects. Because of this, I'm going to go ahead and shut down the alt site here unless anyone raises any objections here in the next 24 hours or so. --Briess 13:17, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

By 'alt site' you're referring to the wagn, right? It seems like careful use of "forms" can reproduce a bit of the functionality of wiki templates, but it's going to be much more complicated and it's not going to be as powerful. VengefulDonut 13:53, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

While i am still having a few problems with the new wiki engine i see much potential in it. I think many useful template-like cards can be made and it seems to be highly configurable. --Pugi 14:14, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

I am indeed referring to the wagn. I'll leave it up for experimentation then. --Briess 15:30, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Also note that at least Briess and I are in the IRC in #bay12games on newnet.net and #dwarffortress on quakenet.org most of the time for a more direct form of communication about various wiki discussions. --Pugi 11:41, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

I just read a "comment" on the new site, as follows...

This page needs the table from the old wiki. ... I may do it myself eventually, 
but for now I am just throwing up articles as fast as possible...

If we're talking about a new approach to versions, pages, etc, is this really the right time to double our workload? More, if we have to learn a new code? (Or, two, in my case, ahem.) What exactly are the goals we are hoping to achieve with the wagn engine? I think Briess mentioned "easier for a new User to learn" - do we not have enough users editing now? Many current users are editing because they know the code from other Wiki's - if "everyone" has to learn it anew, new or not, will there be "more" than now? (And this doesn't address the issue of appearance, which I'm still deciding on.)--Albedo 12:31, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

I can not state how strongly I feel that this is not a good idea. We do not need to move to another entirely different type of wiki especially when we have a new version being released. In all honesty if this wiki isn't going to exist and it will move to a more inferior version then I'm not going to be a part of it. Not to make it sound like a "threat" but MANY other games function extremely well using wikia.com to host their wiki. If Briess intends to let this wiki die and insists on another wiki software then I'm going to work on starting up a new wiki. Because all the talk on the new wiki seems to imply that the goal is to use that software, I set up DF wiki on Wikia.com. I don't intend to develop it, but will go that route if this wiki is going to disappear. Mason ^(T-C) 14:58, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

You fail to read. "Well, apparently there are a few other missing features that were advertised as implemented, namely including templates and redirects. Because of this, I'm going to go ahead and shut down the alt site here unless anyone raises any objections here in the next 24 hours or so. --Briess 13:17, 28 February 2010 (UTC)" --Briess 16:30, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

I'm glad to hear it. I attempted to read through the stuff on the wiki and it seemed like the large amount of contributions there including coping content contradicted your statement (because it wasn't closed 24 hours from then).

(I had some discussion with briess over this on IRC and the reason for the wanted change is, as he said, the horrible stability of the mediawiki engine. But the move to the wagn eninge will probably also not happen, as two main promised features (templates and redirects) are not available in on that engine. And briess and me were both agreeing that at least templates are a must for the Dwarf Fortress wiki. And i also suggested wikia as another candidate but according to briess it is worse than mediawiki. So if you have any ideas on how to stabilize/optimize this mediawiki wiki or have any other wiki engine advice feel free to tell them.) I wanted to post this 10-20 minutes ago but then the wiki crashed again... luckily i quickly copied it after it took such a long time to save the page. So much to mediawiki stability :D --Pugi 16:33, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Actually, wikia isn't a wiki engine - it's just a specific site which happens to run on a (presumably) modified version of MediaWiki (case in point: Special:Version on a randomly selected Wikia site). --Quietust 22:51, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Request for Adminship

Dwarf Fortress Wiki:Request for Adminship

• I want to find additional admin(s) for this wiki. If you think you'd be a good admin, post here and get community consensus behind your adminship electionism stuff and whatnot. --Briess 09:10, 9 February 2010 (UTC)
  • What does it take to be a good Dwarf Fortress Wiki admin? What does an admin do? And which skills are required to do it? --Nahno 17:39, 13 February 2010 (UTC)
    • This. What is an admin's job here? --Señor Pwnage 03:49, 17 February 2010 (UTC)
      • Basically, a wiki admin will help me track down and block spammers, clean up articles, and otherwise helps shape policy and encourage activity. An admin doesn't have the right to go out and be a douche, nor do they have the right to say "I'm an admin, thus my article edits are better" nor "I'm an admin, do as I say". Hopefully that makes some sense. --Briess
  • As conceited as it sounds, I'd like to put myself in the running for this position. I've administrated a wiki before, and tend to check back in here a lot anyway, and can catch a lot of what goes on. --Aescula 20:41, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
  • I'll toss my hat in the ring. Haven't officially logged on in a while - been posting as User:75.62.155.145. I've got a mess of articles and rewrites to my name, and have been unofficially steering folk along DF Wiki philosophical lines, but I'll have to learn some of the "behind the scenes" wiki code.--Albedo 09:51, 18 February 2010 (UTC)
  • Let's make an official way to do this, create a subpage of this requests for adminship page (IE, Dwarf Fortress Wiki:Request for Adminship/Albedo and fill out a template that I'm about to make --Briess 09:59, 18 February 2010 (UTC)
  • 'All users are encouraged to vote on adminship requests'. How exactly does one vote for a particular user?

• The wiki has a new owner. His first act was to add advertisements to profit off of our volunteer labor. VengefulDonut 20:09, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
  • THE ADVERTISEMENTS MUST FLOW! actually, I just moved them from the bottom to the side because the bottom stuff was breaking some of the layout code. Briess 20:36, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

• Another discussion regarding general style and philosophy of the wiki, at Dwarf Fortress Wiki talk:Community Portal, asking whether or not much of our detail is pointless. --Savok 02:21, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

• Screenshots! Take interesting screenshots of parts of your fortress. Upload them to the wiki. Put them here and see them on the main page. VengefulDonut 12:19, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

• There is currently a discussion regarding the general style and philosophy of this wiki, of "what deserves its own page" on the Talk:Main Page. Any and all are welcome to chime in.--Albedo 05:34, 22 May 2009 (UTC)