UWiki

[geoff]

OK, I think it's time to have this discussion one more time.

There is so much valuable information here in the forums, but it's all buried, stored in long linear threads, and prone to getting lost. I propose that we need a non-linear format such as a wiki to make it more accessible.

I know we have things like Matt's discog site, but what about things that aren't discography or released works?

I want to see articles like:

uwiki.org/wiki/Underworld Socks
uwiki.org/wiki/Lemonworld
uwiki.org/wiki/Cappe Ffuno
uwiki.org/wiki/RTSR
uwiki.org/wiki/Gigography#1999
uwiki.org/wiki/2008-01-28 Koln#Setlist
uwiki.org/wiki/LiveHereNow#CUE Sheets
uwiki.org/wiki/Underworldlive.com (Label)#Catalog
uwiki.org/wiki/Fonestrap#History

Wouldn't something like that be grand?

Most of that stuff is buried in the forums somewhere. It would be better if the forums linked to the wiki. I think it should be encouraged to link between them; they could be like sister sites.

I know there are hardware/bandwidth considerations, so I'm not trying to volunteer anybody. I don't even have the means to host it myself. I'm just putting the idea out there. Any takers?

A site like this could be the ultimate time-waster for -1 :D

[dubman]

i think this is great idea, and so many of us have a lot of informal knowledge we could write up.

i think i'd rather see it as something really closely tied to the dirty forum rather than being an independent info source. in-jokes with tracks, forum perceptions, and different users' history with certain events could all get jumbled into an also informative article of, say, "5 points"
and of course -1's encyclopedic numbers of knowledge spread about.

could be a lot of fun :D

[negative1]

yeah.
actually i've fallen off the 'horse' so to say, lately..

lloyd, and thebang are better versed i think...


we've incorporated a lot into the wikipedia entry,
but a lot gets cut due to it not being 'notable'..

we should ask scott if its possible to create one,
but its going to need work , because people like
yannick, etc....would need to moderate it....and
make sure it doesn't have bad/vandalised entries..

later
-1

[dubman]

who the hell would care enough to vandalise it? just appoint some mods and let the info flow...

[negative1]

trust me,
i'm sure there are plenty of haters/spammers/etc..

you've seen here on this board, but its under control..

later
-1

[geoff]

I think the community as a whole would moderate it. It's not like a forum where I can't alter dubman's post. If this was a wiki I'd go right in there and remove his big red sig :D

[geoff]

we've incorporated a lot into the wikipedia entry, but a lot gets cut due to it not being 'notable'..

Yeah, it's precisely the not "notable" stuff that I'm interested in preserving. That's half the fun of being an UW fan. Their work is so deep, that if you have the time, you can totally nerd out on it.

Casual fans know Rowla. We know Crow Lane. :)

[dubman]

I think the community as a whole would moderate it. It's not like a forum where I can't alter dubman's post. If this was a wiki I'd go right in there and remove his big red sig :D

oh the sig stays...

at least until yannick messes with it again.

but honestly, when have we had a true hater troll mess around here? i cant even remember it.
if we make a wiki whatever would happen would be isolated incidents that could be taken care of in a matter of minutes by anyone checking the edit histories. ooh, we could have sections, like..

electraglide is part of a series on Live
bamboo is part of a series on Unreleased
Bono is part of a series on Cocks.


Casual fans know Rowla. We know Crow Lane. :)

ooh good one.

[geoff]

Ohh, how about an article on the history of Fonestrap. Stuff like that would be awesome.

[negative1]

yeah moderating is a good idea, but no fun when you have to do it..

i know wikipedia allows 'anonymous' edits, so that doesn't really
stop someone from messing things up...unless you ban those ip's..

i'm not against a wiki......i think it would have its place,
i'm just saying its going to take work to maintain it,
and since dirty is kinda shorhanded...who else will do it?

later
-1

[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

[TheBang]

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

Har. I actually added Ring Road and The Bells The Bells articles to Wikipedia the other day, just because. But I haven't bothered adding the 2008 LHN albums and other stuff.

As for UWWiki, sorry, no progress. I've had other projects I've been working on. One of them I'll post about here in a month or so. It's pretty exciting.

But anyway, I really just need to take a week or so and knock out the wiki site and then let you guys go bonkers with it. Some day I will when I sit down and decide I'd rather do that project than any others sitting on my plate.