Anjow Posted May 5, 2007 Report Share Posted May 5, 2007 (edited) This is just something I'd like to see, in reality I know it requires effort and money.Since joining here and starting riding, I've run into lots of things I needed to know so I have asked here and the members have helped me. Most of these things are relatively simple questions about bike maintenance and at times I thought "this is such an elementary question I feel a bit stupid for posting it". I wondered if there was a central place for all such answers. I did look at the FAQs forum and there is some excellent material in there - however I noticed it was mostly very specific.What I think would be really good would be if there was a Trials-Forum wiki. This would allow the collection of knowledge in a very ordered way, it would be easily searchable and much more organised than an FAQ forum filled with topics, half of which have discussion on them. Say I had another one of my simple bike maintenance questions, I could post it on the forum, get my answer, then I could repost that answer as a topic on the wiki so people could easily find out 'how to tighten cranks' or whatever, and it wouldn't need to go on the forum. It would reduce forum clutter and provide a one-stop-shop for bike knowledge.There would need to be some protection against vandalism, you could perhaps only let full members edit it.So anyone with spare time (yeah right - just around exam time we've all got days upon days spare), spare hosting and spare bandwidth... There's something to do with it.What say you? Edited May 5, 2007 by Anjow Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tomturd Posted May 5, 2007 Report Share Posted May 5, 2007 http://www.trials-forum.co.uk/wikita daaaaaa..Never really got around to doing much with it.Theres a wiki mod for IPB which I'm tempted to give a go, only thing is its an unofficial mod (although looks to be well written) and its hassle for us to update it, however it is properly integrated with the board. Only problem with media wiki is that I'd like the member details to be shared between here and there.We're awaiting Invision to release 'converge' which will allow us to share member details between the forums and different apps (media wiki for example).If anyone wants to add stuff to the wiki then go for it, if it takes off I'll work on getting it integrated with the forum Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anjow Posted May 5, 2007 Author Report Share Posted May 5, 2007 I'm not too well versed with wikis, but I'm going to make an attempt to add the information I've received in answer to the questions I've asked here. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fixed Pants™ Posted May 5, 2007 Report Share Posted May 5, 2007 (edited) I'll put some stuff from the FAQ section in there if that's good?Credit will be given.That'll do for now Edited May 5, 2007 by Fat Pants Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dr. Nick Riviera Posted May 5, 2007 Report Share Posted May 5, 2007 and here starteth the wars over what specific techniques are called...good idea. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Endohopper Posted May 5, 2007 Report Share Posted May 5, 2007 This is a pretty useful idea , and something that can help many riders and also reduce unneeded posts . All it takes is for poeple to make short entries about their special area of interest or expertise and it'll soon grow . I'll be watching this closely , as it has great potential , and if I'm not mistaken , Trials forum is the largest online community , so this will allow a broad spectrum of topics and articles . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PaRtZ Posted May 5, 2007 Report Share Posted May 5, 2007 How do you create new pages? I want to share my knowledge a bit Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
King C Posted May 5, 2007 Report Share Posted May 5, 2007 It speaketh the truth in the glossary bit. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anjow Posted May 6, 2007 Author Report Share Posted May 6, 2007 How do you create new pages? I want to share my knowledge a bit Like I said before, I am not well versed with wikis but I know that you can search for a page that doesn't exist - it will then give you the option to create it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anjow Posted May 6, 2007 Author Report Share Posted May 6, 2007 What are your opinions of putting other peoples' material from the FAQ forum on the wiki? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fish-Finger-er Posted May 6, 2007 Report Share Posted May 6, 2007 What are your opinions of putting other peoples' material from the FAQ forum on the wiki?if you have their permission(this bit is critical) and its valid good info that hasnt been covered, its probably a splendid idea, needs some reorganisation thought. should have a bike building and maintenance section and tightening cranks should be within that, dont think it deserves its own section like techniques does Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anjow Posted May 6, 2007 Author Report Share Posted May 6, 2007 They were just my experiments with the system. I've added a section called "list of howtos" and put them within there. That page can then link to other howtos as well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Endohopper Posted May 6, 2007 Report Share Posted May 6, 2007 (edited) Let's just get as much , accurate content on there as we can then we classify it into logical categories later . Aside from technical how to's , some general information such as notable riders and manufacturers might be useful to the target audience ( beginners . )I really hope this project takes off , perhaps a sticky link to the WiKi ? Edited May 6, 2007 by Endohopper Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anjow Posted May 6, 2007 Author Report Share Posted May 6, 2007 Since there were issues regarding author permission to copy content onto the wiki, for now I have just linked to a load of the FAQ threads. There's a fair bit in the list now: http://www.trials-forum.co.uk/wiki/index.php/List_of_HOWTOs - feel free to add/remove/reorganise.I feel a bit awkward because I really want to help get this thing going but I just don't have much trials knowledge Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Endohopper Posted May 8, 2007 Report Share Posted May 8, 2007 Let's not allow this thread to die , it has lots of potential . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tomturd Posted May 8, 2007 Report Share Posted May 8, 2007 I have installed a wiki which is integrated with the forum, its disabled for the moment 'cos theres a small few bugs. But it looks very promising (and a lot simpler to use than the current wiki), I'll enable it once the bugs have been ironed out Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tomm Posted May 9, 2007 Report Share Posted May 9, 2007 Interesting:I personally don't see any problems with copying stuff from the FAQ to the wiki, as long as the wiki is clearly part of TF. I think that if you've posted it on a forum, then it's in the public and you can't really control what happens to it. Secondly, I don't think anyone on here would kick up a fuss - I personally would probably take it as a complement if I'd posted something useful enough to go into the wiki.Charel makes a good point though - How are we going to agree on what the article is called. Wheel swap is the name for about a hundred different things. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Endohopper Posted May 9, 2007 Report Share Posted May 9, 2007 (edited) How are we going to agree on what the article is called ?Like WiKipedia itself , we can create disambiguation pages , whereby several keywords link to the same article . There already appears to be a rudimentary glossary , those could also be links . Ninja Edit : Good work , mods . Edited May 9, 2007 by Endohopper Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anjow Posted May 11, 2007 Author Report Share Posted May 11, 2007 (edited) Yes, I think disambiguation pages and redirects are the answer. If you've tried searching for something under a name you know of, but found it under another name, it wouldn't be much effort to stick in a redirect.What does need expanding on is help - plenty of people, myself included, don't know much about editing a wiki (aside from the simple things like formatting).Also - don't be afraid to add links to things that aren't there yet - it's an invitation to expand. For example, I'm just going over correcting a couple of spelling mistakes in an article and I'll be adding a link to a magura maintenance page that hasn't been created yet. When the articles do get created they will be created with that name, if the person creating it followed that link. If not, it can be easily changed in the future.It's not as though empty links will look the same as normal ones and result in a 404 like on the interweb; they are put in a different colour for those who didn't already know, and when you click them it enters the edit section for the missing page, allowing you to create it. Edited May 11, 2007 by Anjow Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tomturd Posted May 11, 2007 Report Share Posted May 11, 2007 Yes, I think disambiguation pages and redirects are the answer. If you've tried searching for something under a name you know of, but found it under another name, it wouldn't be much effort to stick in a redirect.What does need expanding on is help - plenty of people, myself included, don't know much about editing a wiki (aside from the simple things like formatting).Also - don't be afraid to add links to things that aren't there yet - it's an invitation to expand. For example, I'm just going over correcting a couple of spelling mistakes in an article and I'll be adding a link to a magura maintenance page that hasn't been created yet. When the articles do get created they will be created with that name, if the person creating it followed that link. If not, it can be easily changed in the future.It's not as though empty links will look the same as normal ones and result in a 404 like on the interweb; they are put in a different colour for those who didn't already know, and when you click them it enters the edit section for the missing page, allowing you to create it.Well said. I'll copy a page over from somewhere else on the basics of wikis.As you may have noticed (if your using it now) I'm kinda sorting the skin out. Not perfect yet (never will be to be honest) but bear with me.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anjow Posted May 11, 2007 Author Report Share Posted May 11, 2007 I sent a PM to someone recently about credits in the wiki and I thought others might want to discuss it, so here's the gist of it:I don't think credits should be given on the wiki pages. This is because each article has many authors. Person A may submit a draft article, person B may correct some spelling mistakes and person C may add to it. After we get to person Z along the article's normal life cycle it doesn't resemble the original article and so crediting just the initial author alone would not be adequate, and crediting every contributor would not be tidy. No crediting is given on wikipedia, and I think that this would be more 'for everyone' if no one person got the credit for an article so many have worked on.Also, credits do exist in some form in the page history, as records of who has edited it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fixed Pants™ Posted May 11, 2007 Report Share Posted May 11, 2007 I'll make a start on noteable manufacturers.Might not be te best, but it's a foundation for more info. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anjow Posted May 11, 2007 Author Report Share Posted May 11, 2007 Might not be te best, but it's a foundation for more info.That's the best bit, and the entire point of most wikis. You don't have to make a commercial-quality, final-draft page. It encourages people who wouldn't normally to submit content. When anyone posts anything it's not the be all and end all, it's just a foundation for more content. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fixed Pants™ Posted May 11, 2007 Report Share Posted May 11, 2007 FFS, it didn't save it...Damn you Wiki, DAMN YOU! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tomturd Posted May 11, 2007 Report Share Posted May 11, 2007 doh..The skins kinda looking better.(is the new skin showing for you? it looks a bit like the TF skin) - you will need to do a hard refresh anyway (ctrl + f5) to update the changes I just madeEdit, unless your using internet explorer, in which case itll look shit. doh. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.