Community Portal/Navigation Suggestion

Decision: Creation of a new Main Page, Table of Contents, and the Portals.

Navigation Suggestion

I've spent the last couple weeks basically devouring the information on this wiki. As a contributor, I am both new and not very decorated, but in all the reading I've done, I have discovered at least one minor change that would make the navigation much more user-friendly. Could someone include a link to the Categories page, right in the ToC on the Main Page? I know you can find the Categories page via the Special Pages link, but that's not very intuitive, and searching for material by category is a pretty general-purpose function. I think it should be linked right underneath the Tutorials link, as the last entry.
RedFault 10:14, 8 January 2008 (EST)

That would be a request for the DragoonWraith, the sherrif, he's the only one (except BethSoft employees) who can edit locked pages. It doesn't really matter to me, the search function has always been my favorite. There's still room in the index so if nobody objects it should be done. It's probably best to ask this on DragoonWraith's talk page.

--Qazaaq 10:59, 8 January 2008 (EST)

Category Overhaul

If there are categories that aren't useful, maybe we should look into a category overhaul, as well. That's something I can do myself, of course. I'll see if it's feasible. I think navigation is more intuitive from the point of view that you identify a broad subject, and then slowly zero in on the specific information you're looking for. This wiki contains a lot of great info, but it's a living nightmare to find some of it. Ideally, I think you should be able to start at the Main Page, and make your way to any significant article from that launching point. Interlinking articles are important too, of course.

For my own personal use, I have already discovered that the Categories page is easy to find in the Special Pages area, but for other newcomers, it would be handy to access from the Main Page. Just a thought.

RedFault 17:24, 9 January 2008 (EST)

I think it would be a good idea to make portals like Wikipedia has (example). There's a lot of information on this Wiki and it's not easy to find if you don't know exactly what you're looking for or where to look. Portals will not only function as a central place for articles about an aspect of modding they'll also help index the information on the Wiki for the editors and authors.

I have a general idea of what's on the Wiki and where to find certain information. Yesterday I stumbled upon this article. I hadn't seen it before, but it's quite old and very interesting information. I'm convinced that navigation on the Wiki can be improved tremendously. And discussing this is necessary, but as it has always been, there are only a few people contributing and even fewer discussing what's going on. I'm considering starting a thread in the Construction Set forum about this, as that's where most Wiki readers will see it. But before I start doing crazy things, I'll await your reactions (yes, I'm hoping for more than 1).

--Qazaaq 18:17, 9 January 2008 (EST)

Well then, you'll get the one (of two) other opinion :) The wiki has been especially dead for the past 6 months (except the questionable/slightly obnoxious Questions category). The wiki has, what, 2000 articles so it would be ridiculous to do by yourself or even a handful of people. Also, they not only need to be reorganized, but also checked for accuracy.

Less generally, though, how exactly is the portal different from the Main Page/Side Bar Categories?
--Haama 19:28, 9 January 2008 (EST)

I was (thankfully) too hasty in my previous statement, and I have removed it.--Haama 21:33, 16 January 2008 (EST)

(Responding to both of the above) I was not familiar with Wikipedia's portals but that is essentially the kind of setup that I think works. I do also agree with Haama that the side bar on the Main Page is close enough - the only difference is semantics. But after following the link to the forums, I found a lot of my own concerns listed there. Not only do you spend a lot of time here just trying to find the useful information you need, but then when you find it, it's not always accurate, and more often than not it's badly written. I especially hate seeing people mention that "they're not sure" of something they have just written (it shouldn't be there if it isn't a tested fact), or that "we need to get more info on this". That's the reason I have been concentrating on the Beginner's Guide as a starting point. It contains (mostly) accurate information, and covers pretty much every aspect of mod-making from a beginner's standpoint. From there, if you need more specific info, you should be able to follow internal links to whatever you need.

As an aside here, I contacted Tom Dawson at the BSF, and he is still planning to write guides for the Texture/Mesh aspects of modding - that will be a great asset for the guide.

I have watched a lot of solid projects die when they simply expand too far beyond their core principles, uncontrolled. I am a newcomer here, but I hope you will consider my words for what they're worth, and not how old they are. This wiki needs a simple facelift. The skeleton is already here. We should just go back and pretend we're noobs again, start with the first page, and navigate our way from general, FACTUAL info, to more specifics, and then organize the Main Page in such a way that you can follow the same trail. I also highly recommend that we weed out duplicated information (consolidate facts from multiple sources into a single article), and eliminate untrue, untested, or dubious material.

I don't think that's all that much work. A lot, yes. Too much, no. And the end result ought to be a resource that newcomers to modding can use to get up to speed, at the same time that experienced modders are coming back to check on things like the functions list, the specific mechanics of some particular game feature, etc. - confident that the information they're reading is true and will work as stated.

I'm not just blowing smoke here. I try to work as big as I talk. I would be happy to get the entire project underway - I just don't want to start tearing up the existing structure without a decent discussion first. This kind of guide should exist for every modding community on the net. It just needs to be done right.

RedFault 10:10, 10 January 2008 (EST)

On more info/untested facts - Don't be as quick as some others to discard information labeled as "untested" or "we need more information". There are still many things in Oblivion that are untestable, but would be good to have a theory of what happens. For instance, there is no proof that scripts run once a frame, and the best you could do is prove that a quest of delay .001 and a loaded activator will run the same number of times. However, it's an incredibly useful theory, and as far as I've ever been able to tell it's correct.

I think it comes down to what standard do you want to hold this wiki to, and more importantly what standard will attract others to the wiki to start working on it again. If you aim too high no one will be able to post anything. For instance, both DragoonWraith and I recently posted some formulas that were not tested 100%. However, their default values had been tested quite a bit at UESP, the numbers fit very well with the game settings' defaults, and so we plugged in the game settings and wrote them up here, marking how much they'd been tested in the Discussion page. Should they be taken down?

I'm not saying aim too low, though - completely false information should be discarded (and the other idea about combining duplicate information is excellent). I think the best position would be to stop treating this like any other wiki, and to start treating it like science. We don't have secondary/tritary sources to cite as proof of what we post - we have to test it ourselves. That takes time and will always have some missing information because there are simply too many possibilities. If it's properly labeled - how it was tested, what can and can't be told from the test, etc. than that's fine by me. Hopefully someone will come along and fill in the information later, and if not then it wasn't important.

Most importantly, though, I think we need to continue this on the forums. I'm going to start up a simple thread entitled "Revitalizing the wiki" and ask for opinions.--Haama 11:32, 10 January 2008 (EST)

RedFault, I completely agree with everything you've said save one - that this isn't too much work. At least, for me, it is. There is a ton of information here, and yeah, not all of it is easy to find, nor is all of it accurate (though I don't know where you guys claim to be finding so much of it, I've seen nearly every page in this Wiki and quite nearly all of them are accurate as far as I know - and that is pretty far, if I do say so myself. Obviously, there are some things I have undoubtedly missed, and there are some topics with which I am not at all familiar, but I generally find information on the Wiki reliable, when it can be found.

The issue of navigation, redundancy, and making sure that everything is clean, professional, and certainly, improving accuracy, are definitely things that have come up several times - I've tried to generate discussions on these topics, both here and on the forums, several times. But there really are not that many people very interested in helping out. And frankly, it is a ton of work. I'm all for it, and will definitely help where I can, but I know I don't have nearly enough time to do what you suggest.

I'm going to check out Haama's thread now.

Dragoon Wraith TALK 11:56, 10 January 2008 (EST)

I was writing a response, but I'll leave that for the forums. Be sure to quote or summarize what's already been said.

--Qazaaq 11:48, 10 January 2008 (EST)

Bah... After the last forum thread, I swore we wouldn't move this to the forum again. These discussions should take place here - it's important that there be an archive of discussions like these. And, of course, it's important that the community checks here and discusses things here, but of course that hasn't happened. Moving it to the forum is the right thing, because you can't get people to respond here, but bah. Very frustrating.

Dragoon Wraith TALK 11:56, 10 January 2008 (EST)

Sorry for the delay, was having some internet difficulties and wording/tone difficulties :) It's up now. I'll let everyone post their own quotes over there; I feel a bit weird about truncating the statements and quoting Redfault (who hasn't asked for it yet).
--Haama 12:29, 10 January 2008 (EST)

You're right, it's probably better like this. Thanks Haama.

--Qazaaq 12:37, 10 January 2008 (EST)

(Responding to all of above) I will be happy to continue the discussion wherever we post it. I just hope that we are working while we're talking (as much as our schedules allow, of course). XD
RedFault 13:13, 10 January 2008 (EST)

Suggested Table of Contents for Main Page

I have finished what I consider to be the most effective layout of the Main Page. Below is my complete suggestion for the ToC, so that you can see how it would look. If the ToC were set up this way, I would move on to concentrate on organizing these pages to properly link related information.

If this creates a ToC which is too long (I don't believe so, but I anticipate that many others will), I also have a condensed suggestion which involves eliminating several of the numbered entries, which are only included here for convenience. The numbered entries listed here could all be found on the first page of the unnumbered category to which they are attached.

I don't know how this might interfere with the implementation of Portals, which I consider to be a great idea. I am not trying to conflict with their implementation - I started this before Portals were more than a gleam in Qazaaq's eye. There are a number of ways that this ToC could be blended with the new Portals.

--RedFault 11:38, 15 January 2008 (EST)

Do people like this version better than what's there currently? Input here would be nice. RedFault put a lot of work into this, and the ToC as it stands is pretty useless...

Dragoon Wraith TALK 18:53, 19 February 2008 (EST)

What it Would Look Like:

Getting Started

1. Oblivion Mods FAQ
2. About Modding Etiquette
3. A Beginner's Guide
4. Troubleshooting

Data Files

Main Menu

1. File
2. Edit
3. View
4. World
5. Character
6. Gameplay

Building and Editing

1. Main Editing Windows
2. Basic NPC Creation Tutorial
3. My First Dungeon
4. My First Shop
5. Basic Landscaping Tutorial
6. Quest Design

Objects

1. Actors
2. Items
3. Leveled Lists
4. Magic
5. Miscellaneous
6. World Objects

Actor Behavior

1. AI Settings
2. Packages
3. Combat Style
4. Dialogue
5. Detection
6. Pathing and Playtesting

Quests

1. Quest Design
2. Dialogue
3. Journals & Stages
4. Quest Targets
5. Results

Scripting

1. Complete List of Functions
2. Commands
3. Variables
4. Using "If" Conditions
5. Code Optimization
6. Useful Code

Categories

Tutorials

Troubleshooting

Glossary

Links

Don't know - I think I like Portal links rather than the old "sub-category" list. Two reasons - it would shorten the ToC making it easier to read, and we have much better flexibility with the Portals than with the sub-categories of the ToC. I'd say leave Getting Started, Data Files, and Main Menu as is make the rest single-line Portal links. Also, for now I think we should continue to include the Answered Questions and Solutions (or at least link to them from Tutorials).

News - I don't know that we should leave the news bit up. The wiki is changing, but I don't think any of us would like to put it up as news (oh... and none of us have since August which kind-of looks tacky).--Haama 18:13, 21 February 2008 (EST)

I agree, on everything actually. Portal links are much more efficient and clear than an index like this. Of course a couple of central links need to be included too.

I don't think we should keep the news thing up either, but adding a new element seems in order, perhaps a list of Community Portal topics?

--Qazaaq 18:21, 21 February 2008 (EST)

So, are the portals in a good enough shape to go? They looked like it, but I only glanced at them. Also, should we be a bit honest about how the wiki - that is, it might be hard for novices and if you have a question about anything you can fill in the gaps at ESF?--Haama 11:03, 7 March 2008 (EST)

I've been thinking that the Main Page should be a portal itself. We also should have several prominent links on the Main Page - how to use the Wiki, where to get help, how to help out, etc, with pointers like "If you have a specific question about your mod, go to the forums" and "if you have a really hard time finding something, and finally do, put a note in the Talk page so we know that it needs to be easier to find" and, for the love of god, "if you think it's warranted, slap an Article Tag on pages". If you look on the Main Page of Wikipedia, you see "Welcome to Wikipedia", with a link in "anyone can edit" that links to a quick page explaining the page and how people can work on it, and to the right of that you see a series of subjects. Right up top. Just under that you have a series of utility links, and then the Featured Article, News, and such are given the prominence they deserve. We can't do all of that precisely, of course (we don't cover news, and there's not really a lot of history On This Day worth mentioning here, but Did You Know would be great [keeping it updated regularly would be a huge pain, though], and we could use to have our own News section much like we do now).

Anyway, these are my thoughts. Not really sure whether the Portals are ready - Qazaaq's done that himself, for the most part.

Dragoon Wraith TALK 11:23, 7 March 2008 (EST)

The portals are done, as far as I'm concerned. User input on the portals would be great, putting them in clear view on the Main Page should help with that. The animation portal still needs to be made, but I'll do that tonight.

I like the ideas for the main page I've been thinking about that myself, but I wasn't sure how to fill the space. We should probably try a few things on a test page.

--Qazaaq 12:59, 7 March 2008 (EST)

Started on a test page. Lemme know what you think.

Dragoon Wraith TALK 00:04, 10 March 2008 (EDT)