"A New Wiki"

[Weeble]

Okay, I know there are a number of threads on the topic of the Wiki already (linked below), but this one is slightly different.

There seems to be a distinct split between players who would prefer to see the old-style Manual back, and those who can see promise in the Wiki, but not in it's current state. So, my question to all of you is:

How do you suggest the Wiki be improved?

If possible, I'd like everyone who has a view to suggest at least one thing that can be done to improve the Wiki, or one reason why you don't like the Wiki.
I will try and keep an updated list in this initial post, and will cross/tick off any that are infeasible, or have been completed.


Suggestions so far:
Suggestions in orange have been acted upon and require feedback. Items in green have been completed and 'okay'd'. Items in red are infeasibly or illogical.

• Routes on Main Page seem confusing
  The routes on the main page have been removed entirely now, and the front page shifted around.
  
  
• Wiki Interface dissimilar to Bushtarion (and thus unappealing)
  I am proposing to modify the sidebar (the navigation on the left) to mimic the old Manual (with additional links as necessary) - thoughts? Ideally, the logo should also be replaced with the current Bushtarion logo, and the theme changed to a darker colour to mirror the new Front Page of the site.
  
  
• Wiki is hard to navigate - hard to find things you want
  I can't think of a solution to this - other than (as above) modify the sidebar navigation to mimic the old Manual...
  
  
• Main Wiki page very cluttered
  I understand the main reason for people thinking this was the routes being on the Main Page - although I could be wrong. The Main Page has since been modified, but still may be considered cluttered. Any suggestions on how to improve this?
  
  
• Wiki pages outdated/incomplete
  Not a lot we can do about that apart from try to update them and get more people involved in updating it!
  
  
• Articles too wordy (TL;DR) DarkSider
  Suggested we can add a quick 'need-to-know' infobox on every manual page giving the real key details, still allowing for more detailed wording for people interested however? Alternatively, the required information is initially visible with a collapsed section containing extended details.

I know many people would prefer to see the Wiki scrapped and the manual recreated, but why? What are your specific reasons? If these reasons are known we might be able to adjust the Wiki to fix these problems you're having and make the Wiki a better thing entirely.


Thanks all in advance



Relevant Threads:

• New Wiki and Manual (in Bushtarion Discussions)
• Wiki / Manual (in Suggestions)
  

 

[Ridiculous_Lee]

Maybe if the wiki had identical links as the in game pages down the left side, I would like it more. I just say this out of a desire to bring more new blood into the game. I know that if I was a new player at the moment, the sheer amount of things to master would seem very very daunting. For me the wiki isn't hard to use, but I'm trying to look through the eyes of a new player. I think that the information needs to be distilled into the same format as the actual game, so that there aren't multiple interfaces to get used to while trying to learn at the same time. That's the reason that the old manual was better, and you mentioned that this was going to be worked on, so kudos.

 

[Mattheus]

I originally typed this reply for Weeble's thread over in bushtarion discussions. Then thought it may be more suited to this thread. Weeble's seems to be more about the wiki, this is more about which we prefer. Mods, if you disagree and think it's more suited to weeble's thread go right ahead.

Why I didn't think the wiki should have replaced the manual:

Wikipedia.org's success is due to the sheer amount of eyes watching it. It kinda snowballed. Articles are often updated speedily to reflect any current developments, while any vandalisms and bad edits quickly get pounced upon and set straight.
We obviously do not have that luxury. I remember checking the wiki a few months ago to check how it had shaped up. At that time it had almost completely fizzled out, there were a multitude of pages that were still empty or unfinished, and there were many examples of articles that were quite frankly badly written and left as they were. Not a good sign.
It just seems a little odd to me that after such a lacklustre response to the wiki, Azzer proceeded to scrap the manual and make it the only reference point for the player base.

I realise there are examples out there of games successfully maintaining a healthy wiki, but games like Tribal Wars have an order of magnitude more players then us, then even more on top of that. Don't think we can really compare the two situations and expect the same result.

Even now it seems to come down to a mere few people who can be bothered to contribute. A quick look at the recent edits page shows that 95% of them has been done by Weeble, with the odd contribution by Markb and Azzer. If it's down to such a small amount of people bothering, why not just make them in charge of the upkeep of the manual? Just seems a bit pointless to have this whole swanky 'anyone-can-edit' software when the only people who are actually doing the edits are bushtarion staff anyway. Plus there's the fact that a rather large amount of pages are locked to the general member base anyway.
At least with the manual it was formatted in a way which reflected the format of the overview. Simple, easier to navigate, tightly controlled, and to the point.

I have suggested in the past that the wiki could be more used as a sort of "history" of bush database. Info on old players, alliances. Sum ups of the twists and turns of the past rounds etc. And keep the manual as the reference point for actual game mechanics. But hey, doesn't look like that's going to happen.

I realise it's not the whole picture, but I can probably count on a single hand the amount of people I've seen who supports the scrapping of the manual in favour of the wiki, yet it went ahead anyway. According to the poll in this thread it still looks like most favour the old manual.
I really do think this is an important issue, the quality of the resources available to new players is vitally important. Let's get this right.

PS - its stupidly late, so my mind isn't really with it. Sorry if my point kept on wandering. May add more later)

 

[Alcibiades]

My god Mattheus I couldn't have said it better myself with a million hours and pentagon funding to write this. i couldn't agree more that the wiki is not supportable by the bushtarion playerbase, through size or interest and that the manual is the obvious and easiest way to go. Cheers on an exceptional post.

 

[Weeble]

(posts moved as I felt the discussion was more relevant over here)


My whole question, however, was why is this? I'm really interested to know why people have neglected the Wiki, as if we can get those issues out in the open then perhaps we can attempt to fix them.

Your points about the Wiki stagnating is a valid one, I will admit, hence why (I think) Azzer scrapped the manual, as without any other point of reference players might be more inclined to use the Wiki.

You mentioned that most pages are protected/locked (things like the old manual page ports, etc), would it be better/help if this wasn't so?

 

[DarkSider]

First it's like releasing a game that's full of bugs and you then try to patch it again and again to make it perfect. The first impression really counts and if it's dissapointing you'll likely forget about it and move on.

Second, there is alot of work to keep the pages up to date and as we see not many cba to spend their time on it, you can find outdated parts in many pages, the ingame codes won't work in there, the displaying format it's different and for a newbie it would take a while to get used to (if they put effort into it).

Didn't check wiki in ages but i just did now and i'll post what i didn't like at a quick look:

I look at introduction and no way i'm gonna read all that It's so much there that it makes me think it's more about looking nice if you want to present the introduction as a nice image of a large block of text to someone.
Take a look at http://www.bushtarion.com/wiki/index.php?title=Manual_BC_Land_Resources
Cultivating, Growing, Planting & Harvesting - there is another huge chunk of text that obviously took alot of time to come up with and type but really it's like trying to tell somebody the horror movie you saw last night and expect him to have same feelings as you go on.
I suggested before the easyest way of this pages to be presented are ingame with the old "Show help" maybe or/and with the new tutorial but it needs to be graphic and easy on the eye.
Same page under "Getting more land".
Huge block of text that basicly says:
Geos and wheelies can steal land in attacks ( http://bushtarion.com/wiki/index.php?title=Manual_BC_Attacking)
Land can be bounght on maintenance page.
Remember to have enough gards/harvs.
I don't know about others but large blocks of text put me off. I need quick and easy info not a lesson of history. As i said i do appreciate those who spent their time to write all that but when i want help i want it fast not to read 2,3 x huge blocks just to find out there is nothing concrete mentioned there.
Next page, http://www.bushtarion.com/wiki/index.php?title=Manual_BC_Developing
First i look under generic developements and i see yet another big text with alot of words, not easy on the eye. Make a comparison to the manual page that gave same info and you'll see why many prefered the manual over wiki. http://www.bushtarion.com/manual/techtree.php?TR=7

" Technology Routes

Most of the developments in the game fall under a certain "Technology Tree", or "Route". These developments will actually limit your ability to start other developments, while opening up whole new possibilities as you develop down a technology tree. These different technology trees are named the "Protestor Route", "Thug Route", "Military Route", "Robotics Route", "Special Operations Route", and the "Fantasy Route". You can view the "Trees" for these technology routes in the "Tech Trees" appendix page of this manual. "
It took me a good 15 seconds to read all that while in manual it would take a blink of an eye to see http://www.bushtarion.com/manual/techtree.php

Developement multiplier is outdated, again alot of text.
What i need to know is: Multiplier represents a variable by which is multiplied the base cost of a research. It starts at x 3.2, it drops by 0,001 for each research/construction started by anyone in the game. You can see it "here".

http://www.bushtarion.com/wiki/index.php?title=Manual_BC_Scoring outdated

http://www.bushtarion.com/wiki/index.php?title=Manual_EC_Alliances outdated

http://www.bushtarion.com/wiki/index.php?title=Manual_EC_Flakking << again a bunch of text that takes a good while to read (if) you really want to do it. It was Steve_god that came with that easy graphic to explain how flaking works? Quick, at the point, easy on the eye.

http://www.bushtarion.com/wiki/index.php?title=Manual_Misc_Game_Pages#Overview
Same as the example from above with the horror movie. It should be same format and style as the ingame page, i'd prefere if this would be presented in the tutorial instead a block of unapealing text in another page.

http://www.bushtarion.com/wiki/index.php?title=Bush_Codes there a valuable page. I want info , i need it fast, i need to know instantly where to find it instead scouting from page to page.

Or even the past alliances i looked at round 19 and i see winners Leftovers - not a word, Dixyslea "the best alliance" that died bla bla a bunch of text. The info about past alliances should be written by somebody impartial and for the alliances from age 5+ Leaders could be encouraged to write their story in wiki ?


Anyway excuse my negativism, i wanted to show why I don't like wiki and might have been a bit too explicit here and there Bottom line is the manual provides quick info, graphic(easy on the eyes), not as much bla bla text to get your needed resources and it's smaller text size and closer to the style of ingame pages.
Wikipedia it's a sort of extended manual that looks like it has been designed as a history book about bushtarion, explaining every single bit in detail and with alot of words.
As i said before, when i want help say to find a street in a foreign town i expect " 3rd street make left then go until the big Mall on right and the perpendicular street it's the one you want. Wiki would tell me first street it's called that, it was created in that year, it was rebuilt etc etc. Second street ...

Not sure if it's possible but if you want a "New wiki" that has the same functionality as the manual you could have short texts explaining quick what you want and then maybe have an "extended version" that shows the current texts for those that want to read that.

 

[Weeble]

Darksider, firstly, wow, thanks!
Very well put, it helps a lot.

The majority of the wiki pages that are prefixed by "Manual_BC" (basic concept) or "Manual_EC" (extended concep) are simply direct ports of the old manual.

As a sort of... 'fix' for your above concerns, how would you feel if *all* Wiki Manual pages were stripped and redone in a 'standardised' style? What I mean by this is what if there was a 'template', similar to the infobox that shows on all unit pages, that gives quick, direct and to-the-point information on that concept, but still allows the rest of the page to be taken up by more...detailed information.

Would it help if most articles were reworded/broken down into smaller (read: more 'distinct'/relevant) parts as well? If so, would you care to give an example so that we can see what the playerbase would like to see in a wiki/manual?


I do get your point about how it perhaps goes in to too much detail in certain cases, and I completely agree. The Wiki needs players, such as yourself, who know what information they want to put it there for others to see (if that makes sense!). The only reason a minority of the information on the wiki is outdated is because people don't take a great interest in it. Now that the old manual is gone, people might/should be more encouraged to participate in it!

Similarly, some articles have not been fully completed either for similar reasons. Most pages on past rounds have been written off the top of people's heads, and that's quite hard to do when you're talking about something that happened a couple of months/years back! Perhaps at the end of each round we could get a discusison on the forums on what warrants inclusion in the Wiki summary of that round?

 

[flameharvester]

My opinion

My opinion

Ok so I think the Manual page named BC_Routes, needs to be edited, with a similar setup to the old front page, It should have a complete unit list.

Here is an example
[qoute] Protestor

The protestor route is a defensive based route that is cheap and quick to develop. There are three branches where you can choose from: Protestor-Political Mastermind: The political mastermind branch is a defensive based branch. The route has all kind of blockers like the "guru" for blocking flak and the "PoMs" (political masterminds) to block the lethal and some flak. The only unit that can really hurt this route badly is the "biker". Protestor-PoMs are very useful for alliances as they can block a lot of the incoming. This route is mainly for defensive play styles. Purchase unit: not needed, but is fun if you want to bribe other units. Protestor-Terrorist: This branch has the early defensive units and when reaching the "Violent demonstrator" the offensive capabilities of this route will come into the game. The "hippy van" combined with the "terrorist" or even the "terrorist leader" makes this a good route for defensive and some offensive play styles. Purchase unit: recommended. Protestor-Fanatics: This branch is one built for last tick combat. The protestor is able to deal damage to virtually anyone on the last tick. However this lethal force means the offensive is sacrificed. If you use this route attacking together with others is recommended. Also high activity is needed for this route as most of its units are for last combat tick only. Purchase unit: recommended. [/qoute]
(what we currently have)


[qoute]
Protestor

The protestor route is a defensive based route that is cheap and ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ is needed for this route as most of its units are for last combat tick only. Purchase unit: recommended.

Route Setup:

* Protestor Guru
• Protestor Leader
• Loudspeaker Protestor
• Hippy Van
• Violent Demonstrator
• Terrorist
• Terrorist Leader
• News Van
• Political Mastermind
• Hypnotist
• Rebel
• Fanatic
• Extremist[/qoute]

Now I know this is what we had on the front page and we vetoed that but untill a better method is thought of We need a list like that somewhere!

 

[Weeble]

Flameharvester, I get what you're trying to say, but the actual tech-trees are better displayed in image format (http://www.bushtarion.com/manual/techtree.php)

The idea of that specific Wiki page (Basic Concept: Routes) is to give the player a very brief (but descriptive) definition of each of the routes in the game. If they wish to learn more about that particular route then they can easily click on the header and check it out.

Thanks for the input.

 

[flameharvester]

are you aware of how hard it is to find that page ? New users first see the wiki and that is it.

 

[Weeble]

Noted.
As above in the first post:

• Wiki is hard to navigate - hard to find things you want
  I can't think of a solution to this - other than (as above) modify the sidebar navigation to mimic the old Manual...

 

[pinpower]

are you aware of how hard it is to find that page ? New users first see the wiki and that is it.

Personally i dont think that page is hard to find at all? If you click on "manual" from in-game...the first page that comes up is the manual index and there is an option right there. You barely have to scroll down?

x

 

[flameharvester]

while looking for unit info that was the easiest page to find (I checked with some newcomers from my alliance and shoved the site in front of my family members) That is why i suggested that change be made note that i said:

untill a better method is thought of[/QOUTE]
Unfortunatly I havent any better ideas either.

 

[Tapeyy]

Wow the front page looks way better now, not so much a wall of text anymore. I think i can find things now XD With a nice new skin. (I'm not such a fan of the current one, others may like it though?) and some user participation helping with the articles that are not nicely worded or are out of date or for whatever reason lacking, the manual will truly be a relic of the past. Btw defiantly replace the current wiki logo with the bushtarion logo. I assume the only reason it was used was because bush didn't really have a logo before.

Articles too wordy (TL;DR) DarkSider
Suggested we can add a quick 'need-to-know' infobox on every manual page giving the real key details, still allowing for more detailed wording for people interested however?

problem solved however i would suggest if it is possible when you load the page only the key things are initially visible with a collapsible section for the more in depth stuff. my reasoning being that when new people see a wall of text they go no thank you and of course the wiki is for beginners really. although i could be wrong it has been known to happen

 

[BlackWolf]

First it's like releasing a game that's full of bugs and you then try to patch it again and again to make it perfect. The first impression really counts and if it's dissapointing you'll likely forget about it and move on.

Sounds like routes of some game I know.

Weeble the thing is that wiki simply no matter how much edited cant ever reach the level of what manual was. For example such simple thing as layout of manual which was exactly like on your normal game page and pressing the exact same links to reveal info of those was best there was and ever will be way to do things.

I know you have done insane job to make wiki work the way it is now, and thank god it now works well in comparison to what it used to be. Unfortunatedly it still is not manual and wont ever get even near its level. To me majority of bad things about wiki is the simply impossibility to find the info I am looking for. There are no such section where I could easily find it all.

Another thing is that why we still yet have units page etc on their separate section? Now we are like in middle of 2 ways, we have wiki which people hate and dumped the manual, yet we have unit page, tech trees etc on old manual looking pages. Doesnt make much sense to me.

 

[Weeble]

BlackWolf - it is actually possible to completely change the wiki if we so wish, that said, it's actually quite possible (and plausible) to modify the sidebar navigation to mirror the Bushtarion system, which is something I'm thinking of experimenting with in the coming week.


The reason the developments/units are on "separate" pages to the Wiki is because that data is drawn directly from the Bushtarion database. As of yet, Azzer has been unable to find a way to safely do the same on the Wiki without revealing database/table/column names or passwords.

 

[DarkSider]

I don't know about an example but the idea is that wiki as we know from wikipedia it's more used as an information point where anybody - player or curious guy who heard of a term and checks on wikipedia can understand what something means. Usually there you find a very complete definition with many references to other things, quite wordy and i guess a good lecture for somebody who has no idea what the game is about. Current wiki it's close to that.

Manual isn't just for first time readers, hell i check the unit stats almost every round, i go on technologies page every round start when i try a new route to see what is construction and what research to plan my intel devs. There's nothing wrong to have hidden sections of wordy paragraphs but since we don't have a manual we need wiki to provide the quick access to technical data. So it's probably better bush staff to write the "manual" part of the wiki while any other user can add more to the "wikipedia" part of bushtarion like alliances history, terms used, tactics of war, quick start strategies etc.

For the manual part use imo as much as possible images. No matter how good your english skills are a tech tree always looks better as a 'tree' than plain text. Flaking it's better explained with the red and green dots.
Say for the scoring page:

Score is the way bushtarion calculates ranking of players and alliances. Score is formed using the formula ( ... ). Alliance score is calculated cumulating the score of all current members.

I'm not sure it needs more

Solo page:

Players who don't wish to play in an alliance can be solo and benefit from automatic defence in case they get overwhelming incoming. A solo can have up to 2 solo parteners that can help with defence.
To be solo you need to not have been in an alliance for the past 6 hours.
A solo player that have been attacked before can get ar-mod. Ar mod affects the maximum mob worth of troops that can be sent at a solo without triggering Police HQ defence.
The formula for ar mod is (...) and will add all attackers present at the solo player company on ticks atk1 - 3.
Anti-rape levels are (...)

So just strip as much as you can and leave technical data with easy intuitive access to it and some more paragraphs and images