Wiki for alternatehistory.com?

[Ian the Admin]

I've been thinking about attaching a wiki to this site. Similar to wikipedia except for our own use. (Also, I would use software called DokuWiki which is a bit easier to use).

Basically, the idea would be that there would be a web site that any ah.com member can edit and add to, without having to know much about web sites. You can create new pages, link them to other pages, and put stuff in them. Of course, it's a bit free-form, so you need to be polite about keeping things neat and not deleting other peoples' pages.

This would take me a while to do, so I'm wondering what kind of interest there is in something like this.

How many folks here know how to edit a wiki, or have done so in the past? Does anyone see a use in putting something they wrote into a wiki, instead of into a thead? (Other people can't automatically reply to a web page).

[Michael]

Could be interesting for larger timelines, I'm willing to admit a hesitant interest.

[Redem]

I'm not that sure on that idea, but anyway I'm not good at making wiki anyway. But would we transfert (or copy) the "Many Nations of North America" there?

[Imajin]

The wiki system has worked pretty well for "The Many Nations of North America"...

[luakel]

And plus we could start adding works of fiction like the series or Thandes movie parodies...

[Redem]

The wiki system has worked pretty well for "The Many Nations of North America"...

I second that :D

[Leo Caesius]

It sounds like a great idea. I'm considering starting a wiki at Mandaic.org myself. Are such things hard to manage?

[EvolvedSaurian]

Sounds like a great idea!:D

I don't really know how to do it though.:(

[Thande]

I voice enthusiasm, although I myself have no idea how these things work.

[Douglas]

Enthusiasm as well.

[Floid]

I'm all for it Ian.

[Ian the Admin]

It sounds like a great idea. I'm considering starting a wiki at Mandaic.org myself. Are such things hard to manage?

Depends on who's using them.

I installed a personal wiki for myself, and I love it - it's a much better way to organize my notes electronically than anything I've found, and I can access it from any internet connection.

DokuWiki was not hard to install as web programs go - just type some stuff into a configuration file and go. It runs on PHP, which any decent web service will already have. The syntax is not hard either - at the most basic, you can just type a bunch of text into a wiki page and it will show up. Definitely easier than, say, formatting text using HTML.

There is no other technical management, except if you want to control who can edit the pages. To reduce the problem of anonymous jerks you can require people to sign up for the wiki like they would for a web board, and kick them if they misbehave. For something like a community of people with interest in the Mandaic language, probably you wouldn't have a bunch of anonymous trolls.

[Leo Caesius]

For something like a community of people with interest in the Mandaic language, probably you wouldn't have a bunch of anonymous trolls.Yes, that's been the case with the pages I've made on Wikipedia. They never get vandalized (as opposed to more popular topics).

[Ian the Admin]

Here is the official DokuWiki "playground":

http://wiki.splitbrain.org/playground:playground

Basically you see a bunch of stuff on the page, then if you click "edit" at the upper left or lower left, you can see what was written to make it look the way it does. And change it.

[Floid]

Ian, would you really get trolls if you enforced membership onto the Wiki? As in, you have to sign up to edit the thing.

[Blochead]

I support some kind of Wikipedia... I fear that my 70+ page word doc of TL and background info is becoming somewhat unwieldly for readers...

[Weapon M]

the problem of anonymous jerks

Why there is no wiki-militia-pedia...

[Kidblast]

Restrained Enthusiasm for me!

[Evil Opus]

I like the idea, I edit a lot of wiki pages.

[Count Dearborn]

Do it, please.

[Diamond]

Very good idea, Ian. What exactly will go into it? Anything we want? Will you (or someone else) be creating a root page or index with, oh, I don't know, links to sections for AH.com: The Series, various Map Pages (which would make navigating that unwieldy monstrosity easier), things like that?

[Kit]

Sounds like a cool idea. I'm just not sure about the content...

[Hendryk]

I once wrote an entry for the "official" Wikipedia, so I know it's easy to do even for clueless people such as myself. I'm not sure I understand what would go in it though.

[Agentdark]

I support this plan

[Xen]

I have wiki'd a little, it takes some getting use too, but its not so bad. And in fact, I think that style could be the future of Alternate History. We could link our sources, post maps, alternate flags, or create our own little alternate history encyclopedia so to speak of the world we create. Its time consuming of course, but its a good deal of fun too.

[Dr Pervez Hoodbhoy]

Is this going to be an wiki for alternate history in general or AH.com in particular? It's not the same thing.

[Shadow Knight]

Sounds like a good idea but it depends on what the wiki is going to be.

Is it going to be about AH in general with a log of existing AH stories, TLs, etc.?

Or is it just going to be a massive wiki created by 'us' (for example a single world such as DoD that many people contribute to)?

[Justin Pickard]

It would be a far better way to organise some timelines, which just tend to get clunky...

[Max Sinister]

It's a good idea. For my Chaos TL, I already started a private wiki (in German only). I only suggest that you should have to login to the wiki, so if some troll starts to vandalize pages, we can see who did it, and Ian can kick his ass. ;)

Of course, we'll have to learn how to make disambiguation pages, for all those different Constantinoples, A-Hs, Venices and Deserets. :)

[Midgard]

I like the idea, although I've never edited a Wiki article either at the "official" Wikipedia, or at one of the more topic-specific ones. I think, however, that it should focus on more of better-established timelines, stories, general AH-related concepts (as in "what is an ISOT", etc etc - for newcomers to the genre), the site-related parodies, etc. The content would be the hardest thing to figure out, IMO, although it could make it easier to find very specific, topic-organized content as opposed to using the site's search function, which only looks for words, and thus may give many false leads when you are looking for a very specific topic from a year or two ago, or the like.

[Thande]

Another thing that might be worth putting up is our database of information fleshing out well-known published stories and timelines, e.g. Worldwar and the Draka, with links to our alternative variations upon same.

By which I mostly mean maps, maps and more maps :)

[Flocculencio]

I think it's a great idea- it could replace the TL forum

[Ian the Admin]

The basic idea is that any logged-in member of this board will be able to edit the wiki, and what goes into it is *whatever you guys want* (even chat-related stuff provided it's within guidelines of civility, not being porn, and so on).

So I'm trying to figure out what people would put on a permanent wiki site.

One thing is timelines. Unlike on the board, you can post incomplete timelines on the site *and edit them*. Everything has unlimited edits. You can split stuff into different pages however you want. You can also have *multiple people* edit the same timeline/wiki pages, with the ability to cancel their changes if they do something rude.

This is different from the board where post editing is disabled to keep trolls from covering their tracks. Unlike the board, the wiki tracks all changes and you can revert to a previous version, so you can't cover your tracks after posting something offensive.

People could also revive the old AH Directory. I used to keep a listing of all known AH web sites on the internet. However, it got to be too much of a pain for me to keep it updated myself. It might be easier if anyone could edit it, including web site owners themselves if they're members of this site.

[Shadow Knight]

Sounds good, but I'd take some precautions like making sure the original author (if they can be contacted) has given permission to place a TL on it (if they are not doing it themselves). It would be quite annoying to find 'your' TL placed up their by someone else and then edited into a new version.

Overall I think it is a great idea for collaborative TLs and stories (might not be the best solution for all TLs, etc.) and a great place to store or link map and historical resources for all to use in an organized manor (think being able to look for say all maps related to the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and getting not just historical maps and the links to them, but versions created by other posters without all the hassle of trying to remember in what TL that map you wanted was in or on what page of the Map Thread).

[Oddball]

I voice enthusiasm, although I myself have no idea how these things work.

And that makes two of us...:o

[Oddball]

There seems to already be a AH Wiki:

http://althistory.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page

[EvolvedSaurian]

There seems to already be a AH Wiki:

http://althistory.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page

It's not for this site though.

[Otis Tarda]

Fine for me, although maybe there should be aditional registration to prevent altwikipedia from malicius trolls.
Or, maybe there should be done backup once a week, or something similiar. Just in case.


It's not for this site though.

And I'm pretty sure, there is no explanation of "Blame Thande" things :D

[Highlander]

Sounds good. When will it be up?

[Psychomeltdown]

Hmmm.. maybe it can be used to help flesh out the series. :D or at least allow for information to be readily available to those who wanna know more about this and that serieswise...

[Max Sinister]

What about finished TLs / worlds? There's just one problem: Since they're inventions by a single author, he's the only one who can write more about the background, and people can't add their knowledge about history (unless it's pre-POD).

However, wikis support discussion of articles. That could be very useful...

Using our wiki for TLs in the web is a good idea.

[crnagora99]

No way, there`s already a very goood alternate history wiki. Why do we need two huh? useless

[Diamond]

No way, there`s already a very goood alternate history wiki. Why do we need two huh? useless
Because ours would deal with this site specifically, while the other one deals with AH in generalities. I don't think they'd find it very amusing if we were to create sub-articles dealing with AH.com: The Series, Holy Sheep, or Homosexual Innuendo 101. :rolleyes:

[oberdada]

Very good idea.

Makes things easier for complex timelimes
with lots of authors.

One thought:
I don't know if it is possible, but it would be great, if it was possible to
limit the exess of entries.
That way, it would be possible to have only the author(s) beeing able to edit articles of their timelines.

[Akiyama]

This is a GREAT idea. Not only would it make it easier to organise and present information on timelines, but people could create wiki-pages on historical topics from an AH point of view.

For example, a wiki-page on the Confederate States of America could include possible PODs, how the Confederacy might develop and how it might react to future problems (such as slavery, the Great War), what the US might be like without the South, a bibliography etc.

It would also be useful to have wiki-pages devoted to summaries of the world situation at particular points in OTL's history (maps, brief outline of what was happening in each country/region at the time, important events in the near future that might be affected by changes to history).

I think you could deal with people editing other people's timelines by simply making it clear that it is bad etiquette to do so without the author's permission. Wikis make it possible to delete vandalism or simply revert to a previous form of that page, so I don't see how vandalism could ever be a major problem.

[Akiyama]

How many folks here know how to edit a wiki, or have done so in the past? Does anyone see a use in putting something they wrote into a wiki, instead of into a thead? (Other people can't automatically reply to a web page).

If DokuWiki is like Wikipedia then people CAN reply to posts - because each page has its own "discussion" page attached.

[fortyseven]

It's a great idea. I'm guessing Dokuwiki is user-friendly?

[Ian the Admin]

Yeah. I'll set it up so that it *looks* a lot like Wikipedia, but your login on this site will be the one that allows you to edit it, and the commands for making text look different ways and making links are a bit easier to use.

Also, I could put in some code for the newbs that allows them to use the bold and italics and all the other codes already used on this board. Of course, that only helps if you know what those bbcodes are, rather than just clicking "bold" on the editor and letting it do it for you.

ANYWAY, this won't be done for several weeks, maybe a month. I just moved, so I'll be busy for a bit.

[Glen]

I've been thinking about attaching a wiki to this site. Similar to wikipedia except for our own use. (Also, I would use software called DokuWiki which is a bit easier to use).

Basically, the idea would be that there would be a web site that any ah.com member can edit and add to, without having to know much about web sites. You can create new pages, link them to other pages, and put stuff in them. Of course, it's a bit free-form, so you need to be polite about keeping things neat and not deleting other peoples' pages.

This would take me a while to do, so I'm wondering what kind of interest there is in something like this.

How many folks here know how to edit a wiki, or have done so in the past? Does anyone see a use in putting something they wrote into a wiki, instead of into a thead? (Other people can't automatically reply to a web page).

I've done it before. Not too hard.

The thread style is cool, but there might be some benefit to a wiki, specifically for well developed timelines.

[Chris]

I suppose I could add a few enteries covering what I write...:D

Seriously, a wiki for just AH.COM would be a great idea. Have Physco moderate all enteries for approval before they get posted.

Chris

[Max Sinister]

Some suggestions, if it's not too late:

The planned wiki could make some good use of redirects (Ottokar Przemysl -> Otakar Przemysl) and especially Disambiguation pages, like this:

Third Reich
"Third Reich" may refer to the following empires:
- Germany under Adolf Hitler in 1933/34, which ended after Röhm's coup throw the country into chaos
- Germany under Adolf Hitler from 1933-36, when he was toppled after Britain and France declared war for invading the Rhineland
- Germany under Adolf Hitler from 1933-45, defeated after the bomb was dropped on Oldenburg and Graz (Hitler tries the Mediterranean strategy TL)
- Germany under Adolf Hitler and successors since 1933, defeated Poland, France and Russia in WW2; POD: Leningrad conquered in 1941

Hm, we'll need a good way for giving the TLs unambiguous names to tell them apart.

[EvolvedSaurian]

How goes the wikification of AH.com, High King Ian?

[Ian the Admin]

It'll start when I finish moving the board to a new, hopefully faster server. A few weeks from now at least. I'll de-sticky this thread so people don't die of anticipation.

[Xen]

No way, there`s already a very goood alternate history wiki. Why do we need two huh? useless

I'm really not that impressed with the other Alternate History Wiki, besides were the brotherhood of alternate history on this sight, the best for Alternate History on the internet. It seems only natural that we have our own Wiki for the Brotherhood to go even more in depth with our timelines.

[Akiyama]

It'll start when I finish moving the board to a new, hopefully faster server. A few weeks from now at least. I'll de-sticky this thread so people don't die of anticipation.

I can't wait any longer! Is it ready yet?