I have just two words: Brilliant.
P.S. I volunteer for the MediaWiki extension hackers group and the
pywikipedia framework group.
Have done work with both already.
--
Jamie Hari
Editor-in-Chief
Marvel & DC Database Projects
On 7/2/07, Dan The Man <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
What does everyone think of a bit more solid definition of the
programmers mixed in with the Wikia community who could even help with the
construction of some of the various things being setup.
Basically I'm thinking of more definition that a few various people in the
Wikia community are programmers, some even avid MediaWiki extension and hack
programmers who think to themselves (If I had done this, I would have
tweaked this, or done this) when they look at new features being rolled out
across Wikia.
More solid definition would consider 2 things. Identification and
interaction.
- Identification would mean various ways of identifying that such a
group of people who can do these things exists:
- We have a Wikians page, a list of Staffers, lists of Techs,
and a few other groups or lists users put themselves up on in some of the
inner communities. Perhaps a page for the programmers who like working
with
the software Wikia is working on could be made.
- Userboxes are always interesting and even one to identify
the coders would be interesting.
- The staff are getting a tag for their signatures to signify
that they are staff. I know it's for identification for them, and care
should be taken to keep any other group identification solidly different
than that. But perhaps identification of groups in a signature would be
interesting. (I think I'll expand on this later in this message)
- Interaction would both mean interaction between the programmers in
the community, and even possibly some of the techs:
- Interaction by some method (Forum, IRC, special Mailing
list, etc...) between the programmers in the community could let them
co-ordinate on some ideas. If one had an idea to build something, others
could give suggestions on methods, or what it might lack that would make
it
be rejected if anyone decided that it would be useful for a Wikia wiki.
- There is some small communication between a few people, and
one or two techs. But if there was some method of communication
programmers
could help give feedback on ways they've found that could help improve the
code being worked on Wikia.
- I myself, and a few programmers have short lists of ideas
that the techs have suggested that Volunteers can help out with coding.
What
if we put lists like these up in a public location for various programmers
to see. Perhaps it would attract people who like doing those things, but
have never considered that they might be allowed to help out build it for
Wikia.
Perhaps some more focus on the Open Source aspect:
Like WikiMedia and the MediaWiki groups, Wikia aims at the open source
area. Anyone can contribute to a wiki, anyone can use those contributions
elsewhere, anyone can become an admin to help out, and anyone can found a
new wiki.
But what if we did the same thing with coding new tools for use on Wikia?
Community involvement in making wiki, making templates for wiki, and even
coding the software to work on those wiki.
Code could be put in SVN so even the programmers could suggest patches to
fix glitches, clean up the code, tweak functionality, or add new features.
Unofficially, one of the reasons I started Wiki-Tools was actually to demo
new tools and extensions that could possibly be used on Wikia.
Something a bit different to consider is actually community grouping:
One of the things I found a problem with was how Wikia is only simply
divided into the large community, and the individual communities. One of the
problems I see is that only the wiki as a whole, and the wiki as individuals
are emphasized. So when a wiki needs to go up a level to get help, the only
group they are a part of they can ask for help, is the entire community as a
whole. But for a small wiki, even that is pretty intimidating.
It also doesn't work out for moving from one wiki to another. Thankfully
we are getting the hub pages to help group similar wiki together, but that
isn't much different than the categories. To find a new wiki, you still move
out to the entire community, and then in to another. It may be more
comfortable for someone to move out into a group of wiki similar to each
other, then in to another one of those.
Unfortunately I can't draw a graph to demonstrate, but I'll attempt to
show the difference with a table and lists. (Using Gaming, Animanga, and
Programming groups as examples (not all wiki exist, it's just a example))
Grouped Hierarchy
- Wikia Community
- Gaming Wikia
- Halopedia
- FPS Wiki
- RPG Wiki
- Runescape Wiki
- Animepedia
- Narutopedia
- InuYasha Wiki
- Bleach Wiki
- PHP Wiki
- JavaScript Wiki
- C/C++ Wiki
- Wikia Community
- Gaming Group
- Gaming Wikia
- FPS Group
- FPS Wiki
- Halopedia
- RPG Group
- RPG Wiki
- Runescape Wiki
- Animanga Group
- Animepedia
- Narutopedia
- InuYasha Wiki
- Bleach Wiki
- Programming Group
- PHP Wiki
- JavaScript Wiki
- C/C++ Wiki
My thoughts are, instead of emphasizing the Wikia Community, and the
Individual wiki. Emphasize the Wikia Community, the Individual Wiki, and
Group those wiki together in ways where all the similar wiki can collaborate
together on making things that they can all use, or letting members move
from one wiki to another, without having to jump out into the wide area.
That's actually something I'm trying to experiment with. Wikia has default
Templates, but they don't work for all groups in the same way. Different
groups may need a different set than another group. So I'm attempting in the
Animanga area making these kind of things in the Animanga Group area in that
list, so that indivdual wiki in the group don't need to struggle with
creating their own when other wiki in the group have already struggled
through that and created reliable templates that are targeted at what that
group is doing.
And it doesn't half to be just grouping of wiki groups. Like the idea of
grouping the programmers together so they can collaborate on ideas, you
could also group together the artists who like drawing things, and even let
users in different groups have some sort of identification they can put in
their sig to signify what they do.
It's not a grouping of "People like communicating with their own kind" but
the fact that it can help identify what someone may do. Someone goes and
sees that a signature tag says that someone is in the CSS/JS group, then
they ask "Can you help me fix this". Someone sees a tag that someone is in
the Pywikipediabot Users Group, they ask that person to help setup the
framework on their own computer. And someone sees someone in the MediaWiki
Programmers group, and they ask "Is there any reason that Wikia might reject
this Extension being added to this Wiki?".
--
~Daniel Friesen(Dantman) of The Gaiapedia, Wikia Graphical Entertainment
Project, and Wiki-Tools.com
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