Hard Light Productions Forums
Community Projects => The FreeSpace Wiki Project => Topic started by: Narwhal on August 23, 2009, 03:58:35 am
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About one year ago, I tried to rank all the campaign in chronological order. This didn't work, as many people here warned me. But since I had this huge data base done, I tried (with the help of quite a few people) to have a comprehensive campaign list. The page is there : Narwhal's list (http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/Narwhal%27s_Campaign_List)
(The name has nothing to do with my ego, Goober didn't know how to call that list.
In the wiki, we have something like 4 campaigns lists :
- This one (http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/User-made_Campaigns_(FS1)) for FS1 - accessed through Main Page => FreeSpace 1 => Campaigns
- This one (http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/User-made_Campaigns) - accessed through Main Page => FreeSpace 2 -=> Campaigns
- This one (http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/User-made_Campaigns_(FS2)) for FS2 accessed through Main Page => User-made campaigns
- The one I created, see above, accessed by knowing it exists.
Note that the way you access to the second and third list does not correspond to their contents.
I'd like to merge all those lists into one, basically the one I created and other people expanded, which is the most comprehensive (since I copied all the datas of the other lists and added campaigns I found on the forum or elsewhere). By having only one list, we can hope that campaign developper would be more keen on updating it themselves.
My questions are :
- Do you think it is a good idea ? (my opinion is YES)
- What's lacking for Narwhal's Campaign List to become the "normal list" ? (bar a new name - in my opinion a way for people who only have FS1 or FS2 but not FSO to sort the campaigns so that only those they can play appear - but I don't know how to do that).
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I never understood why we needed multiple pages for FS2 campaigns, so I second your notion.
Just make sure that all campaigns that are on the other FS2 campaign-related pages are on your list, and that's it.
Reading through the other campaign lists, I'm convinced yours should remain only; the others are incomplete.
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Merge them.
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Yes.
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Can you have both lists on the same page? I appreciate the amount of work you've done on your list, but I find it harder to read and I like the simplicity of the other alphabetical lists. I'm wondering if you can have both. Or can the alphabetical list be used as sort of an HTML index which jumps down the page to the more detailed description??
If someone's browsing, based on era your's is great. But if someone's looking for a specific one, then it becomes much harder to find. I know about the search button. But some poeple are stupid and don't do any searching.
OR . . . can a person have two pages. The default being your basic list. And then the second one being a purely alphabetical list. Maybe with the same data, format, but alphabetically???? Or maybe just like, lose the italics for the campaign titles??? I dunno. I tend to find italics a bit harder to read myself which complicates things when scanning lists. Maybe other people don't mind it.
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The "normal campaign list" is (or well, at least it was, didn't check) horribly out of date anyway, just replace it.
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I don't know how to merge pages. Nor can I, I believe.
Akalabeth : I believe most people using the wiki and looking for a specific campaign will use a search button. if anything, I ll prefer a reminder of using the search button rather than the same page twice, because having to update two pages is harder than only one (and the basic modder / FREDer is lazy when it comes at editing the wiki :p)
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Merging is not an embedded Wiki feature. It's the process when you juxtapose two pages (the one that will remain, the other one that will be removed), and add everything you can find to the page that will remain. This maybe a complete manual rewrite of its content, or a straightforward copy/paste.
I believe there's nothing to merge in the two pages, provided all the campaigns are listed in your article that are listed in the "old" campagn list. The description code is worth saving, though. It's easier to read the campaign's descriptions in the old page. I'll see what I can do about it.
[EDIT]Okay, I realized that the old campaign list uses the template {{CampaignEntry}} while your list doesn't use any template, just HTML coding. I suppose, then, that you know enough HTMLing (I don't) to make the campaign descriptions appear under the campaign's name, in one line. That would help the page's eligiblity tremendously.
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Actually... I don't. I stole an (HTML) template, and then modified it by trial and error until I understood how it worked and how to improve it. But I can't start anything from scrap.
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Then it's just a matter of merging the campaign lists into your own?
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Actually... I don't. I stole an (HTML) template, and then modified it by trial and error until I understood how it worked and how to improve it. But I can't start anything from scrap.
Looks like you took the code from the original campaign list page.
Merging the lists is a good idea. I second the motion!
You have to realise though that this might lengthen the page greatly, though it is already of a considerable length.
I'd also reccomend sorting the list in status order, released at the top. When a campaign is released, update its status in your list. This will mean you have to keep a constant timetable, for example, checking every end of the month for any releases you missed and update accordingly.
For the length thing, I'll go mull over any solutions.
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I am leaving in holydays in a couple days for several weeks so I won't do any change before September / October. Feel free to add suggestions, I ll try to implement the ones proposed here.
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You have to realise though that this might lengthen the page greatly, though it is already of a considerable length.
No, if someone with sufficient knowledge of HTML comes around and makes it so that campaign descriptions take up only one long (scrollable) line of text instead of numerous shorter ones.
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End of holydays came with a nasty, self-inflicted, time-consuming, personal decision(to pass a competitive entrance exam to some competitive school). I ll keep my page updated weekly, but won't improve it or do anything toward a merge for a couple monthes, at least.
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OK, since finally I am not taking that exam, I am going to improve my page according to your suggestions. Here are the modifications I am going to do :
- (Try to) Put the description on another lines, like in the "official campaign list"
- Separate the finished campaign from the WIP progress. Maybe make two pages - what do you think ?
- Add "sources" for the campaign which does not have it yet.
Any help welcome.