Oolite Bulletins

Since https://bb.oolite.space/viewtopic.php?t=8366 long strayed from the original topic, let's continue discussion here.

Uncle Reno wrote:

Kaks wrote:

Do ask them if spammers are a problem or not...

Please don't, the flashbacks have finally started to settle down...

In light of this, of course the wiki remains editable by people with user accounts only.

Ahruman wrote:

Winston has ignored all requests for wiki extensions to date, including the most basic ones like Parser Functions.

Without the Mediawiki addons, I'm not sure the auto-generation can be made to work very well. If someone can get them installed I can look at how to do auto-generation, but in the meantime, I guess we must work within the limitations of what we have.

Also I thought of a problem. Many authors have their own separate web pages. Auto-generation won't work with them. Should we force authors to use the wiki for their main OXP page? That seems quite harsh to me.

For OXP authors who do not have a wiki account, please PM me details of any OXPs that need to be updated or are missing using the format:
|Category
|OXP Name and Brief Description
|Author
|Min Version of Oolite
|Max Version of Oolite

mcarans wrote:

Uncle Reno wrote:

Kaks wrote:

Do ask them if spammers are a problem or not...

Please don't, the flashbacks have finally started to settle down...

In light of this, of course the wiki remains editable by people with user accounts only.

It does defeat the IMHO most valuable goal of a Wiki, namely to enable people to add their own wisdom as easily as possible (note: I'm talking about all Oolite Wiki pages, not only OXP related). Of course we have to be wary of spammers, but wouldn't Google's reCAPTCHA go a long way towards helping with this problem? It does mean that Winston would need to install a plugin though... But it seems very easy..

mcarans wrote:

Also I thought of a problem. Many authors have their own separate web pages. Auto-generation won't work with them. Should we force authors to use the wiki for their main OXP page? That seems quite harsh to me.

I agree that forcing our dear OXP authors is not a good way to maintain their spark of creativity. Honestly, I think that will boil down to the need for a few dedicated individuals to scour the BB, ReadMe files, author web sites, etc. for information about OXPs and maintain the relevant Wiki pages. Since I see value in having them maintained I volunteer to help with this.

maik wrote:

Since I see value in having them maintained I volunteer to help with this.

Very much appreciated.

Does anyone have any objection to me changing column heading "Author" to "Contact", the idea being that there would be one contact for a multiple-authored OXP?

Author and contact are different. For oolite I would describe Giles as the Author, and Ahruman as the maintainer (or contact).

Cmdr James wrote:

Author and contact are different. For oolite I would describe Giles as the Author, and Ahruman as the maintainer (or contact).

Which do you think would be most useful on the OXP page? (Keep in mind that the detailed information about an OXP will be on an external site or wiki page so I don't think it's necessary to have both.)

I think there are 2 reasonable options:
1. Use Contact there being one or two contacts
2. Leave as Author - for more than around 2 authors, put Multiple (less useful for sorting but not too bad)

Either option is fine with me.

The things that matter to me (and I only speak for myself) are:

Who takes the credit for it (author)
Who to contact for copyright, license, legal questions. ie can I do xyz
Who to report bugs to

These may all be the same person, but I guess may not be.

I prefer to keep it the way it is and just list the main author. The Readme (or whatever else the author prefers) would be the place to name all the contributors.

mcarans wrote:

maik wrote:

Since I see value in having them maintained I volunteer to help with this.

Very much appreciated.

Great, I just PMed you to coordinate.

mcarans and I will start with sorting out the details for the OXPs that already are in the lists, going through Enhancements and Expansions at first.

More volunteers are welcome to the party . Please coordinate with us to avoid duplicate work.

Authors that don't mind the additional work are most welcome to submit entries about their OXPs, preferably in the format that mcarans outlined earlier in this thread. Or wait until we updated your entry and send corrections afterwards.

Well done guys, and best of luck.

Thargoid wrote:

One small comment, as soon as you put multiple authors/contacts etc then you'll partially cripple your sorting. For example the BigShips OXP is by Eric and me, but I'm the one who hosts and keeps it (on Box).

But if the list is then sorted by author and the author for BigShips is "Thargoid & Eric Walch" for example, then it'll appear just after ones by "Thargoid" but a long way down from "Eric Walch". So if you're looking for Eric's OXPs, you'll miss it.

Yes agreed, multiple authors is a problem and when it gets beyond about 2 authors (eg. Snoopers), then I have put "Multiple" which means you can't sort by any authors name which is not great, but the table is always going to have compromises.

Thargoid wrote:

And as we're at the early stage, would there be any benefit from a "Size" column? As not everyone has fast download links or extensive hard disk space, some of the larger OXPs might be a no-no simply due to size.

I would say that Size could be either put on the linked page (be that in the wiki or someone's separate site) or perhaps in the OXP Name and Brief Description column. I think we should try to keep to the minimum the number of mandatory columns (especially as it looks like I'll be editing for many of the authors who don't have wiki accounts )

Thargoid wrote:

One small comment, as soon as you put multiple authors/contacts etc then you'll partially cripple your sorting. For example the BigShips OXP is by Eric and me, but I'm the one who hosts and keeps it (on Box).

But if the list is then sorted by author and the author for BigShips is "Thargoid & Eric Walch" for example, then it'll appear just after ones by "Thargoid" but a long way down from "Eric Walch". So if you're looking for Eric's OXPs, you'll miss it.

And as we're at the early stage, would there be any benefit from a "Size" column? As not everyone has fast download links or extensive hard disk space, some of the larger OXPs might be a no-no simply due to size.

Good points. The one about multiple authors is of course technically correct, but I wonder how relevant it is. How often does one search for OXPs by author?

Adding size as an attribute makes sense. Eventually we will have to prioritize though unless we want a really wide table. One option to not loose this information is to include it in the Wiki OXP template.

mcarans wrote:

Thargoid wrote:

One small comment, as soon as you put multiple authors/contacts etc then you'll partially cripple your sorting. For example the BigShips OXP is by Eric and me, but I'm the one who hosts and keeps it (on Box).

But if the list is then sorted by author and the author for BigShips is "Thargoid & Eric Walch" for example, then it'll appear just after ones by "Thargoid" but a long way down from "Eric Walch". So if you're looking for Eric's OXPs, you'll miss it.

Yes agreed, multiple authors is a problem and when it gets beyond about 2 authors (eg. Snoopers), then I have put "Multiple" which means you can't sort by any authors name which is not great, but the table is always going to have compromises.

Thargoid wrote:

And as we're at the early stage, would there be any benefit from a "Size" column? As not everyone has fast download links or extensive hard disk space, some of the larger OXPs might be a no-no simply due to size.

I would say that Size could be either put on the linked page (be that in the wiki or someone's separate site) or perhaps in the OXP Name and Brief Description column. I think we should try to keep to the minimum the number of mandatory columns (especially as it looks like I'll be editing for many of the authors who don't have wiki accounts )

Great minds think alike

maik wrote:

One option to not loose this information is to include it in the Wiki OXP template.

You learn something new every day. What does the Wiki OXP template do?