UWiki

[geoff]

Again, I don't think it has to be any one person...

But you're right, without a dedicated moderator, there is the possibility that an article could remain defaced for a while... We wouldn't want that on a "semi-official" wiki.

So, maybe the only option is to have a 3rd party wiki. Not hosted by dirty. Not directly associated with dirty. Not linked from any of the official Underworld sites.

There is nothing is stopping an earnest fan from doing that all on their own, anyway ... Maybe i'm just suggesting that somebody like that should do it

[dubman]

you can appoint multiple moderators, and they can check a list of recently edited articles to check for vandalism. it takes a few minutes and requires about as much regularity as checking this forum right here.

it's not hard. at all.

[patrick]

have some sort of approval system where new writers need to be approved by previously approved writers a few times before they can commit without approval. start off with a few obvious choices: lloyd, matval, -1, etc... and there you have it, instant distributed moderation.

i love the idea as I would be super keen to be able to digest all this information. I personally am not too interested about all the different versions of cowgirl and the different lengths, but would more love to read the stuff about the origin of cowgirl, the name, history of phonestrap etc...

[TheBang]

OK, I really didn't want to say anything beforehand since it's not ready, but since you guys brought it up, you can check this out:

http://206.127.230.155/Special:Allpages

I've been toying with it since last year for exactly the reasons you guys have mentioned in this thread. I've gotten pretty tired of the guidelines and restrictions of Wikipedia, so I've pretty much stopped updating the Underworld content there. I like Wikipedia very much, but it's just not the appropriate repository for the kind of trivia and information stuff that we like for Underworld.

MediaWiki, the most popular Wiki software (the same software that runs Wikipedia), is fairly configurable for access. I can set it (as I have now), so that articles can only be edited by registered users. User registration can be handled in numerous ways, but I think I would leave it as I currently have it set, where accounts have to be manually created by administrators. Spambots are a big problem with Wikis, and unless you're running Anti-spambots, their crap has to be cleaned out manually.

I had initially thought to restrict accounts to a select few whom I trusted to have a fastidious attention to detail. People like -1 and Jan immediately came to mind. I wanted the information to be super-accurate, super-consistent, and super-complete. I wanted complete, little details, like all the exact track timings and where tracks are available, and all the catalog number, and so on. However, now I do see the need for less detail-oriented information too, like Underworld Socks, and other anecdotal contributions. I'll have to look into it, but I think I can set up different classes of articles, so that only users in certain groups can edit certain articles.

So, as a lot of you know, I'm anal about trying to get everything "just right" the first time, which means things take a long time to happen sometimes. A lot of other projects and things in my life have been taking priority over this project. However, at least the following things need to happen before I feel comfortable "officially launching" the site:

1. I think I've got most of the basic framework laid for song articles. I still need templates for singles and album/EP articles.

2. I need to update MediaWiki. It's running a rather old version that's deprecated, but I need to upgrade PHP on that server before I can update MediaWiki. I'm working on it.

3. I do want the Wiki design to be consistent. There are probably a lot of templates, frameworks, and structures that will need to be set up to support the articles. If anyone has Wiki experience in setting up those kinds of support structures, I'd definitely be interested in hearing from you.

4. I haven't registered a domain yet either. I was thinking underworldwiki.com. Any thoughts or other ideas?

Edit: And live shows; I haven't even considered how to incorporate those into the Wiki. A lot of that content and effort would be duplicative of http://uwlive.rowla.com. I don't even think a Wiki is the best method for storing and presenting all that data. I think a custom database and interface like what Mike's been trying to build would be much better suited to that task.

[negative1]

very cool,

i'll check it out (i hope its not blocked at my work!!!!
like dirty is)..

yeah, i can see it taking time to ramp up though.

i have about 4 years of archives (maybe more) of
all the yahoogroups postings, and dirtylistings too...

you definitely need to set up some templates early on,
or it will get out of hand and disorganized quickly...

later
-1

[geoff]

Todd, that's really awesome. I had a feeling if anybody was going to do this, it might have been you. Kudos.

I would say definitely allow for the anecdotal, trivial stuff, because that's where most of the fun is. If it was just song data it could get boring pretty quick. The fun stuff is what will keep people coming back. In fact, I think "Trivia" should be a standard part of your templates...

For live gigs, I don't see any harm in allowing those pages to be made. I can imagine data that's only appropriate for Mike's database, but I can also imagine data that's more suited for a wiki. Gigs can have trivia too! (The mixing desk cut out during Jumbo... etc). Even if it's only the "tour" page, and the individual gig pages are missing because nobody wants to fill them out, who cares?

As far as the domain name goes, either underworldwiki or uwiki (with one W), nice and short.

Again, nice job; you rock.

Whenever it's ready, I want a login too!

[TheBang]

For those of you who haven't seen it, check out www.ninwiki.com. I think there's definitely a lot of stuff we can emulate from there.

[patrick]

i don't know if it there is interest but for domain/hosting, one option could be to ask Yannick since he seems to be the future admin of darktrain before doing anything too quick

darktrain.org/wiki would probably gather more people

also about only moderators being able to insert info, that is almost against the principals of wiki's unless you have a ton of moderators. if it is like the forums where there are only a few moderators and it is a position of high desire, then you essentially don't have a wiki anymore. it needs to be EASY to change things as a normal user. I am not sure if the MediaWiki software supports it natively, but having 3 or more levels of people would be good:

new user - must have commits approved by a high level user
user - can commit directly, no approval needed
high user - can approve new users and demote users (etc)

and you go between them based on post numbers or whatever

[geoff]

How does ninwiki handle moderation? Looks like anybody can write (although not anonymously), and they have 4 designated moderators.

If we had 4 people with enough interest to moderate it, I don't see why that couldn't work for us too.

At least that would keep it "open" and accessible enough that many people can contribute. Otherwise it could stagnate and become uninteresting.

[negative1]

thebang,

any update on the status of this?
i figured you would mention it..

i'm really hating wikipedia,
as that is so out of date,

later
-1