Project Redcap:Administration: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 04:17, 6 August 2012

This page is for administrative discussions among the site contributors.

MediaWiki Migration

Updated 2012-08-05

The migration to MediaWiki is underway. Andrew Gronosky has parsed the XML data from the old site and produced a separate file for each page, 2225 in all. These require conversion from PageWork format to MediaWiki format. Andrew wrote a script to automate that process, but it is only about 80% effective at this point.

If you want to help with the migration, take a look at the Special:RecentChanges page. Browse the recent additions, especially anything created by User:Redcap_Automation, and check for mistakes. If you want to add content to improve the page, that would be good, too. :-)

Stub Article Cleanup

I (Andrew Gronosky) am coming to believe it was a mistake to upload the hundreds of short articles that were auto-generated from lists of spells and Virtues and Flaws.

There are three problems with these short articles:

They don't add much value to the site. I would argue having hundreds of one-line articles is a lot less valuable than just uploading the Virtues and Flaws Index PDF and pointing to that.
They give the impression that Project: Redcap is trying to be something it's not: an exhaustive index for the game. If we had a hundred contributors maybe we could maintain an exhaustive index. With the number we actually have, I'm actively opposed to taking on that thankless and tedious job.
They only cover a fraction of the Virtues and Flaws (and spells) in the game, so they give the impression that the site is a half-hearted job. The fact that most of them consist of nothing more than a page reference and a (probably dead) link add to that impression.

So, I think we should get rid of most of these stub articles. If we actually have something useful to say about a Virtue, for example, Animal Ken, by all means put that in the article and leave it in place. I also think it's important to import such articles so they show up in the database and project logs, in case anyone ever wants to resurrect them (say, to put in actual content).

I've already got started on consolidating articles. We had a situation where there would be one stub for a Virtue like Animal Ken and a separate Stub for the corresponding Ability or Art or whatever. Since the Virtue and the Ability have the same name and we have only one line of text for each, I think it makes a lot of sense to have a single page covering both.

I'd like to enlist the help of the other maintainers to review and clean up most of these articles. The situation I'm trying to avoid is for to contain 500 stub articles with that overwhelm the handful of articles where we really do have something to say, and is nothing more than an unusable and incomplete imitation of the Virtues and Flaws Index PDF.

Legacy Page

he history of this page before August 6, 2010 is archived at Legacy:administration.

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
-This page is for administrative discussions among the site [[contributing contributors]].
+This page is for administrative discussions among the site [[contributing|contributors]].
 == MediaWiki Migration ==
@@ Line 7: / Line 7: @@
 If you want to help with the migration, take a look at the [[Special:RecentChanges]] page. Browse the recent additions, especially anything created by [[User:Redcap_Automation]], and check for mistakes. If you want to add content to improve the page, that would be good, too. :-)
+== Stub Article Cleanup ==
+I (Andrew Gronosky) am coming to believe it was a mistake to upload the hundreds of short articles that were auto-generated from lists of spells and Virtues and Flaws.
+There are three problems with these short articles:
+# They don't add much value to the site. I would argue having hundreds of one-line articles is a lot ''less'' valuable than just uploading the Virtues and Flaws Index PDF and pointing to that.
+# They give the impression that Project: Redcap is trying to be something it's not: an exhaustive index for the game. If we had a hundred contributors maybe we could maintain an exhaustive index. With the number we actually have, I'm actively opposed to taking on that thankless and tedious job.
+# They only cover a fraction of the Virtues and Flaws (and spells) in the game, so they give the impression that the site is a half-hearted job. The fact that most of them consist of nothing more than a page reference and a (probably dead) link add to that impression.
+So, I think we should get rid of most of these stub articles. If we actually have something useful to say about a Virtue, for example, [[Animal Ken]], by all means put that in the article and leave it in place. I also think it's important to import such articles so they show up in the database and project logs, in case anyone ever wants to resurrect them (say, to put in actual content).
+I've already got started on consolidating articles. We had a situation where there would be one stub for a Virtue like [[Animal Ken]] and a '''separate''' Stub for the corresponding Ability or Art or whatever. Since the Virtue and the Ability have the same name and we have only one line of text for each, I think it makes a lot of sense to have a single page covering both.
+I'd like to enlist the help of the other maintainers to review and clean up most of these articles. The situation I'm trying to avoid is for [[Category:Virtues]] to contain 500 stub articles with that overwhelm the handful of articles where we really do have something to say, and is nothing more than an unusable and incomplete imitation of the Virtues and Flaws Index PDF.
 == Legacy Page ==
 he history of this page before August 6, 2010 is archived at [[Legacy:administration]].