Official Unofficial GPF Wiki Thread

[Unit Squared]

The Faultie Circuit needs YOU! That's right - you! The Faultie Circuit Official Unofficial GPF Wiki is finally online and in dire need of content. I've written an article or two, but I don't want to end up being the only one. I'd like the wiki to be a community project, so I turn to you, my fellow Faulties, to fill in the gaps. I know there has to be at least one writer out there . . .

The Faultie Circuit also received a full overhaul in CSS and PHP during this update. Please take a look around and let me know what you think.

Edit: Title changed due to sticky status.

[atristain]

Holy Wombat! You even made a Wombat cathegory! Wombatlicious!

I'm not touching that. That's Limax territory.

Quick Limax! To the Marsupial Mobile!

BTW You look younger with your new Avatar!

[Tuxmaster]

Now is there Something in there for the #6

[Screenhog]

Yeah, I'll contribute something for that... gotta brush up on my wiki formatting again though.

[sharpestmarble]

gotta brush up on my wiki formatting again though.

Better than I can say. I gotta learn Wiki before I can brush up on it.

No time like the present, though.

Do we need a cast page, though, with the page I've linked?

[stjen]

There probably need to be entries for each significant member of the cast in the wiki. However, for the main cast members that have their own pages in the official cast listing, a direct link from the wiki to the specific page is most appropriate, along with any new info (speculations?) that are not yet in the cast page (like, loose threads associated with them).

On the other hand, the secondary cast members that only have a paragraph or two in the "everyone else" page -- I would think they need their own pages in the wiki. I would think the best thing to do is seed those pages with the current entry direct from the "everyone else" page.

Jeff, I know you're watching this -- would you allow us to seed the wiki Cast pages with the text you have in your cast pages? We can put in any attribution you want (e.g., (C) JTD ..., with a linkback), and somehow manage to keep that text more or less in synch with any changes you make to the cast pages. Then, we'd have a basis for extending the pages in whatever way the wiki leads us. Any thoughts/requirements?

[jtdarlington]

I'm fine with the seeding of the cast pages. Sadly, I only get around to updating the official pages three or four times a year, so they can get out of date quickly. (I'm still embarrassed by the fact I never have given Agent #18 an entry on the secondary characters page, given how many times he's shown up.) I don't think any extra copyright information is required, so long as (a) there is a blanket copyright statement somewhere on the site that's easily accessible that states that I'm the original author of all things GPF-related, and (b) for each quoted or seeded page, a simple statement like "From the official cast page:" precedes it with perhaps a link back to the individual entry, so it's easy to tell what's official and what's unofficial. (By individual entry, I mean the individual page for a given main cast member, and for secondary characters the internal anchor on the "seconds" page for that character, like here for Akhilesh.)

As for any rules, it looks like Unit has covered the basics: just the facts (i.e. no or minimal speculation, although I think major fan theories might be acceptable if they're common enough ("Dr. O could really be Yoshi") and be clearly labeled as speculation), use the categories, and keep it clean. I'm mildly concerned about the occasional character name errors/missinterpretations that crop up in the Wikipedia article (i.e., Trudy should be listed as "Trudy Trueheart" not "Gertrude 'Trudy' Trueheart-Glowerhausen," since she legally changed her name; "Moonbeam Gertrude Glowerhausen" should be mentioned somewhere in the article, though, as it is relevant, but it's technically no longer her name), only because the nature of Wikis make this easy, but some administration and redirects could correct it easily.

When some more information gets added, I'll try to occasionally go through and look for glaring factual errors (like I try to do on Wikipedia). Unit, shall I replace any links on the Link-O-Rama to point people there, or would you like for it to get fleshed out a little more first? (Of course, by "replace" I mean you respond in a reasonable amount of time, I'll put it off until I forget about it, and in a few months I'll finally remember and actually update it.)

[Unit Squared]

. . . so long as (a) there is a blanket copyright statement somewhere on the site that's easily accessible that states that I'm the original author of all things GPF-related . . .

Copyright information can be found in the general disclaimer and on the Copyrights page that shows up when you create or edit an article. If there's a specific wording that's needed, just let me know.

Unit, shall I replace any links on the Link-O-Rama to point people there, or would you like for it to get fleshed out a little more first?

Go ahead and update the links for the website, especially since the stats are no longer there.

[stjen]

(b) for each quoted or seeded page, a simple statement like "From the official cast page:" precedes it with perhaps a link back to the individual entry, so it's easy to tell what's official and what's unofficial. (By individual entry, I mean the individual page for a given main cast member, and for secondary characters the internal anchor on the "seconds" page for that character, like here for Akhilesh.)

OK, I'll propose a standard for the wiki cast pages -- they should all start out (for now) with lines like:

[[Category:Characters]]

Akhilesh:

From the Official Cast Page:

and then quote the main paragraph(s) from the page for the character.

Probably end the quoted part with some boilerplate like:

''(Entry last updated by JTD on date)''

so we can quickly determine if the wiki needs to be updated from the official text again.

Note that the words Official Cast Page are the linkback to the page you quoted from, to make it easier to check if updates occur.

Sound reasonable, people?

Edit: I've gone ahead and seeded a couple of minor characters in this way. See if it seems reasonable.

I added a bunch of links to non-existant articles to allow one to get into an edit mode -- for some reason there's no link on any page that allows one to add a random article.

[jtdarlington]

The proposal sounds good, and the seeded articles look like a good start. It could probably use a little mark-up, like creating the "official" segement as one section heading, then the fan-added segment as another. The link to the beginning of the story with the character's first appearance should be included as well. See my tweaks to Chuck's page for an example. (I'll try and post more suggestions later, but I have an appointment to leave for now.)

The non-existing link block is a little unwieldly, but it does make it easier for those not intimately familiar with Wiki markup to get started. Of course, it's not that hard to create a new article; just change the URL of an existing article (like http://fc.unitzoid.com/wiki/index.php/Chuck) to what you want the new article to be (say, http://fc.unitzoid.com/wiki/index.php/Sydney) and load that in your browser. You'll instantly be put into editing mode. I've used that trick extensively with the top secret Keenspot internal Wiki.

[jtdarlington]

Okay, I've stickied this thread, as I suspect it should stick around for a while. (I don't want to sticky too many, as that makes it hard to find new threads sometimes.)

The main thing I wanted to add from what I posted before is that the main MetaWiki Help:Editing page is an invaluable resource for Wiki mark-up. It explains all the gory details of how to build things like section headings, links to other articles, etc.

In the Chuck tweaking, you'll notice that I included the links you'll find in Chuck's official cast listing, including links to key strips or sequences that explain what's going on. I thought those were important enough to put in the cast page, so if we're seeding these pages with that information, I'd think those links should also be carried over. Unit, however, is the Wikimaster, so I'll let him decide the official policy. (I'll just make what I think are helpful suggestions. )

Also note that each time another character is mentioned in a character's entry, at least once there's a link to that character's page. I always did this for cross-referencing, and I think it's even more valuable in Wiki form. I did the same for Chuck, but switched the link to point to the Wiki article, not the official cast page. Thus, you'll notice the links for Fooker, Fred, and Trudy are currently red, as it points to an unpopulated Wiki article that needs to be edited.

Here's something that should be brought up: Unit, how would you like to handle images? I see three possible options: (1) if you so allow, images could be uploaded to the site (and I'd probably allow this for most instances, depending on what's getting added), (2) the images could be inlined from the GPF site (which would cost me some bandwidth but would save space and bandwidth for you), or (3) disable/dissallow images altogether. I probably wouldn't mind the use of the cast pages images for instances like this; full comics probably wouldn't be a good idea. The final decision, however, should be in Unit's court.

[stjen]

The proposal sounds good, and the seeded articles look like a good start. It could probably use a little mark-up, like creating the "official" segement as one section heading, then the fan-added segment as another. The link to the beginning of the story with the character's first appearance should be included as well. See my tweaks to Chuck's page for an example. (I'll try and post more suggestions later, but I have an appointment to leave for now.)

The non-existing link block is a little unwieldly, but it does make it easier for those not intimately familiar with Wiki markup to get started. Of course, it's not that hard to create a new article; just change the URL of an existing article (like http://fc.unitzoid.com/wiki/index.php/Chuck) to what you want the new article to be (say, http://fc.unitzoid.com/wiki/index.php/Sydney) and load that in your browser. You'll instantly be put into editing mode. I've used that trick extensively with the top secret Keenspot internal Wiki.

I don't have time right now to look at what you did, but it sounds reasonable to me. (I was just up late and wanted to get something started, figuring that either I or someone else would go back and add some of those things later -- thanks.)

I didn't know that part about changing the url to get into creation mode -- that wasn't anyplace I could find on this Wiki. (Again, it was late.)

I agree that the block of non-links is a pain, but I figured that as articles would get added to the underlying list, just remove those links from the top, so over time the block would decrease in size, and be the place to request new articles.

(I guess the keenspot wiki is no longer so top secret, is it...? )

[jtdarlington]

(I guess the keenspot wiki is no longer so top secret, is it...? )

Well, I'm not exactly passing around the URL, username, and password, so I suppose it's safe enough for now.

[sharpestmarble]

Unit, when adding info about a character, do you want us to use the names already in the cast pages by jtd?

[Unit Squared]

In the Chuck tweaking, you'll notice that I included the links you'll find in Chuck's official cast listing, including links to key strips or sequences that explain what's going on.

I think the links, along with the first appearance, is a good idea. I like the formatting, too. Now, if I can find out how to make templates for a wiki, we'll be set.

Here's something that should be brought up: Unit, how would you like to handle images? I see three possible options: (1) if you so allow, images could be uploaded to the site (and I'd probably allow this for most instances, depending on what's getting added), (2) the images could be inlined from the GPF site (which would cost me some bandwidth but would save space and bandwidth for you), or (3) disable/dissallow images altogether. I probably wouldn't mind the use of the cast pages images for instances like this; full comics probably wouldn't be a good idea.

The jury's still out as far as images are concerned. When I installed the wiki, I disabled uploading to the server (which I can change with a little PHP diving). I'm probably being a bit paranoid about bandwidth, especially since I'm also hosting my sibling's business on the same account. On the same token, I don't want to take GPF's bandwidth either. I'll give it some thought and get back to you guys about it.

I didn't know that part about changing the url to get into creation mode -- that wasn't anyplace I could find on this Wiki. (Again, it was late.)

It's on the front page of the wiki, item number 2.

Unit, when adding info about a character, do you want us to use the names already in the cast pages by jtd?

Yes and no. I'd like to have the most commonly known name for a character used when creating the article. That way, it's easy to find a particular character. Jeff does this for a few of the characters on the cast pages, but, for others, a combination of titles are used (especially the Brotherhood of the Twisted Pair - I feel they should have an entry, but Scott and Tim should have their own as well). So stick to the commonly known names for now (i.e. Chuck for Charles "Chuck" Walker).

[stjen]

I didn't know that part about changing the url to get into creation mode -- that wasn't anyplace I could find on this Wiki. (Again, it was late.)

It's on the front page of the wiki, item number 2.

Well, duh. Since when do guys read instructions? At least I figured out that I could add empty references and click on them to go into edit on them.

I guess I was thinking there ought to be a place where you could click on, that would put you into a basic template form or something, so you could pull the category from a dropdown, choose the file name, and so on, along with initial text, or something like that. No matter, I know what to do now.

[Erzengel]

I didn't know that part about changing the url to get into creation mode -- that wasn't anyplace I could find on this Wiki. (Again, it was late.)

It's on the front page of the wiki, item number 2.

Well, duh. Since when do guys read instructions?

[url=http://www.thinkgeek.com/tshirts/sysadmin/5b7e/]$>man woman
Segmentation fault (core dumped)[/url]
Message from Kernel: Since when do you read the manual?

Ooh, now I want a shirt which says something like:
Even if life had an instruction manual, you wouldn't read it.

Sorry to be Off Topic.

[Ferretgames]

"(Can't contact the database server: Can't connect to MySQL server on 'wiki.fc.unitzoid.com' (4) (wiki.fc.unitzoid.com))"

Like how your database goes down the second I want to prod the new wiki.

[stjen]

Confirmed -- I keep getting "This page can not be displayed" messages from the wiki, although the static pages are fine. Oh, Unit...!

[Unit Squared]

I just received this message from my service provider:

Hi there happy Nala database hosters!

We're having a bit of a problem with the database server, nala, that you are hosting databases on. We currently have an administrator at the datacenter now, trying to resuscitate her. Hopefully, we can get her backup and running shortly. We'll let you you know things are back to normal. Sorry about that!

Happy-dreamhost-database-server-fixit-emt-team!

It seems to be up at the moment (I even cleared my cache to be sure), but I'll keep an eye on it. Good thing I back up the database myself, too.

[Limax]

I've never heard a database hoster referred to as 'happy' before.

[Unit Squared]

I've never heard a database hoster referred to as 'happy' before.

They're an odd bunch. I once received a monthly newsletter of theirs completely written in prose.

[Ferretgames]

Okay it's working now, can we please have a Recent Changes link? I feel naked without it.

Yeah I can get to it manually but I'ld be best on the sidebar.

[stjen]

Isn't that just one click down under the Special Pages link?

[Unit Squared]

Okay it's working now, can we please have a Recent Changes link? I feel naked without it.

I don't see why not. Before I add it, are there any other links that you guys think should also be in the sidebar?