0 A.D. wikibook

[Sturm]

Hello everybody. A long time ago I suggested here a possible entry on 0 A.D. on Wikibooks Wikimedia project. As nobody felt motivated to do it, I started it this week.  The main idea is, throughout the chapters of the book, allow people to know not only the characteristics of the game but also a little of the history of its development, its technical challenges, and attempts on the adequacy and fidelity to the historical aspects, as the game put a strong emphasis on historical accuracy.

In order to follow the rules of the Wikibooks project, the book does not intend to be a strategy guide and/or a walk-through.

So, it is a start. I think it will be funny to write about the project in a way different from what we can get on Wikipedia.

- https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/0_A.D.

Regards,

Sturm

Edited November 15, 2019 by Sturm

[Stan`]

Hello Sturm,

Thanks for your initiative. Why do you think wikibooks is a better solution than our own wiki on trac.wildfiregames.com ?

[Sturm]

37 minutes ago, stanislas69 said:

Hello Sturm,

Thanks for your initiative. Why do you think wikibooks is a better solution than our own wiki on trac.wildfiregames.com ?

2

I do not think it is a "better solution", because I do not think they are exclusive. I see value in the initiative, even when there is some degree of redundancy. I think that Wikibooks can still attract a number of editors (people contributing) immensely larger than the 0 A.D. Trac, as well as being easier to edit and it already has a vastly accessible collection of media files on Commons, ready to use.

 

- https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:0_A.D.

Edited April 2, 2019 by Sturm

[Stan`]

51 minutes ago, Sturm said:

I think that Wikibooks can still attract a number of editors (people contributing) immensely larger than the 0 A.D. Trac, as well as being easier to edit and it already has a vastly accessible collection of media files on Commons, ready to use.

That was mostly my question  Thanks. The thing is the more we spread the more coverage we get but the more likely we will spread outdated erroneous information. Also,  I hope it won't but if Wikibooks goes down, you have nothing left  the same happens if you stop updating it

[elexis]

A wikibook exclusive to strategies from players for players sounds good, but reading all the categories on the site linked, I'm worried that there could be important wiki entries posted that are relevant to development, and thus should be on Wildfire Games development platforms. The "Game history" is in fact "Wildfire Games history", I fully agree we need to write these articles, lots of public history is buried on the webarchive version of wildfiregames.com. We are in fact already a bit busy putting the history back together.

https://trac.wildfiregames.com/wiki/WikiStart#TechnicalDesignDocumentation

would be the best place to add development documentation, there already is a lot, but it's outdated and incomplete. Everyone can edit that, add funky images or whatever. It's just a bit yellow, but a wiki with many possibilites for formatting.

The Wildfire Games history documents should go to https://wildfiregames.com/, they could be pre-written on the forums.

For gameplay strategy guides, our trac wiki might indeed not be the best place, and the forums don't allow for collaborative and revision-history editing.

I guess for some people, the straegies are their personal ones, whereas there are some strategies that are mathmatical requirements to play better, objectively true. The more something is written subjectively, the less universal truth it holds, the less I worry that Wildfire Games loses that content. But if the strategy guide was written so that every player that follows these rules becomes better, it might be something Wildfire Games may want to keep on trac or their forums too.

If you want to focus on the strategy guide aspect, I would recommend to motivate some of the competitive players. If you get one, the others might be inclined to participate.

[Nescio]

Wouldn't it be better to have a Wildfire Games-hosted wiki, separate from trac and the forums, instead? The official website, Wikipedia, and the in-game menu could then link to that.

[elexis]

I haven't seen compelling evidence yet that the forum attachment and formatting options of the trac wiki are insufficient.

The main purpose of the request was to pull in a large crowd (right?), that sounds good, but Wildfire Games should really keep a copy of all revant information on their sites. Even better would be if the information is created there in the first place, rather than having to move it over in retrospect. Especially if we're talking about technical documentation (that should even be inside the code first and on the wiki second), and WFG history.

If the wikipage remains a duplicate, there is no disadvantage to WFG as long as WFG doesn't have to maintain that. Another problem with third party hosters hosting original content, is that the third party hoster may reserve rights, which may reduce WFGs rights to the work. The same arguments apply to Steam for instance.

To utilize the large crowd at wikibooks, that large crowd could do their thing, and it will either remain in the state of duplication, or they will produce original content which someone should add to our pages, assuming there are no copyright grabs or similiar in their terms of service. The one who transfers it to our side could also be one of the wikibooks crowd, as our trac and forum are editable by anyone who complies with WFGs ToS.

So realistically you could start a copypasta wikibook and leave a link at the top that people should keep the works in sync. But that sounds like needless overhead, why not fix everything in a central place... So perhaps there could be a short article and then a link to the technical documentation, so as to pull in as much of that crowd without requiring anyone to dissect copypasta. (or whatever)

[Sturm]

Just found a lost 0 A.D. related wikibook: https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/The_Pyrogenesis_Engine

Back to 2012, created by an user called "Zoot"...