WikiSquad/Project/Improving the Wiki

Improving the Wiki
Workgroup	WikiSquad
Start date	Tue 28 February 2017
Contact	Ilja (talk)
Status	In progress

Introduction

The goal of this project is to improve the use of the wiki, both for pirates and non-pirates. The wiki is a workplace and our memory. To be transparent we need to make sure that information can be easily found and is presented in a way that is easy to understand. If we want people to use this wiki as such, we need to make sure that we keep the threshold for using the wiki as low as possible.

Board

This board is used to present the changes that can or need to be made and also to give an idea of the improvement we are making in general. You see that the board has a Proposals-section, a ToDo-section, a Doing-section and a Done-section. The Proposals section is to give proposals (of course :p ). You can write proposals to improve the wiki in the pad. We can't guarantee that everything on this pad will be executed, but it will be taken into account.
When making a proposal, please be clear about what exactly it is that you want, state a clear goal, possibly with examples.
Things that are decided that need to be done come in the #ToDo section. When someone starts on this project, they can move this to the #Doing section and then to the #Done section once the goal is reached.
Because the wiki changes (definitely during this project), it is possible that things from the #Done section return to the #ToDo or #Doing section.

ToDo

rethink the use of the pads

• Pads are good tools, but they can easily clutter up the wiki, which makes it look unfriendly to new people. --Ilja (talk) 20:19, 2 August 2017 (CEST)

  Maybe we should also rethink the need for pads (pros and cons). For instance, they are easy to edit, but we don't get any notification of the changes

  Is there any other tools that could keep the "easy edit" feature ? (I don't know, just wondering) --HgO (talk) 20:27, 2 August 2017 (CEST)

  I've been wondering about that as well. I know there are webcommics, for example, who use disqus (example: http://www.sssscomic.com/comic.php). People can log in if they want, but can always post as a guest as well under a temporary username (which will be displayed in a different color than users who have an account). I don't think it's libre, but if we'd have something like that that we could place in the wiki, I think that would be awesome (and of course, I would not want to log in on the wiki AND that discussion thing with two different accounts). --Ilja (talk) 20:42, 2 August 2017 (CEST)

  We should have a look at: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Category:Discussion_and_forum_extensions ;) There are plenty of extensions, never had time to test them :p --HgO (talk) 21:04, 2 August 2017 (CEST)

  I've skimmed the pages of the plugins and at first sight https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:Comments seems like the most promising (:. Release status is stable, you can add the comments with a simple <comments />-tag, there is a setting that allows non-signed-in users to comment and reply as well, it looks nice, it's under GPLv2... I'm not sure about notifications though. --Ilja (talk) 18:36, 21 August 2017 (CEST)

  • Possible suggestions (table is open, so let's disqus ;) ) --Ilja (talk) 20:19, 2 August 2017 (CEST)
    • Add better information on the pad itself about what a pad is and how to use it (example: https://pad.pirateparty.be/p/Wiki-Manual_Discussion) --Ilja (talk) 20:19, 2 August 2017 (CEST)
    • Try to group the pads at the bottom of pages, especially those who easily get cluttered (I do believe exceptions are possible, so let's think about that as well). --Ilja (talk) 20:19, 2 August 2017 (CEST)
    • Try to limit the number of pads on a page --HgO (talk) 20:27, 2 August 2017 (CEST)
    • Better information at the location where the pads are put in the wiki --Ilja (talk) 20:19, 2 August 2017 (CEST)

      Maybe the Wiki workshop about how to structure the wiki will give some answers here ? :) --HgO (talk) 20:27, 2 August 2017 (CEST)

Wiki-manual

• Add more information on how to search. For example, when I want to find a userpage, typing the users name won't give me the results I'd expect. I need to type User:username. I assume the same goes for projects... These are things we should add as well.
• Split the manual into chapters
  • I think that the manual would be more readable if we split it into chapters. We would thus have smaller pages --HgO (talk) 20:25, 28 February 2017 (CET)
  • The wiki is changing, so I wouldn't want to do this to soon (and then see that we have to do it all over again), but I definitely feel that a restructuring is getting necessary :/ --Ilja (talk) 20:54, 16 March 2017 (CET)

Survival guide

• The Dutch version of the guide needs some touch-ups, rephrasing of certain sentences and added translations.

New links for the sidebars

• See this section

Create a Help:Lexicon

• We have a link from the Main_Page_test to a lexicon. This still needs to be created. This can be a page or a section on another page (maybe Welcome/Guide#Petit Lexique?)
• We could use this extension as well: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:Semantic_Glossary

Crew form

• Add translations for some labels

Translate the wiki

• Make a tutorial on how to do it ?

Doing

Template:ProjectSidebar

• Rethink the sidebar in order to make it easier to use. There is a draft here.
• List of members wouldn't be on the sidebar anymore, because this list was rarely updated

Help:Conventions

• Updating the naming and usage conventions page
• TODO: Project's naming convention (cf. pad)
  • Summary of the propositions (both conventions would be used):
    • Project/NameOfTheProject/dd mm yyyy
      • where "dd mm yyyy" are the day, month and year when the project was first launched
    • Workgroup/Project/NameOfTheProject/dd mm yyyy
      • where Workgroup is the team supporting the project (there can be several)
      • Usefull for local projects (e.g. Linux Install Party)

Events

• Implement a great event system.
• What needs to be done:
  • Create some documentation / how to, here for instance Help:Events
• At the moment, we can already:
  • Create different type of events using forms (Meeting, PirateBeer, External event, or no specific event)
  • Use multiple dates for external events (each separated by a coma)
  • Assign multiple workgroups (each separated by a coma)
  • List events
    • We can filter them by types:
      • For instance, we can choose to display all events but external ones, with {{Events|type=!External}}
      • or we can display pirate beers and meetings, with {{Events|type=PirateBeer, Meeting}}
    • We can filter them by workgroups:
      • For instance, we can choose to display all events but those from Crew BW, with {{Events|!Crew BW}}
      • or we can choose to display events from different workgroups, with {{Events|A workgroup, Another workgroup}}
    • We can filter them by date:
      • For instance, we can choose to display only future events and show the closest first, with {{Events|start=now|order=asc}}
  • Show events from given wiki pages
    • For instance, we can display the Pirate Lab of March 2017 together with the wiki workshop event, with {{ShowEvent|Pirate Lab/Meeting/25 03 2017, WikiSquad/Meeting/11 03 2017}}
      • By default, they are not sorted, because it would hide events that don't have a date. We can sort events by adding "sort = true" parameter (e.g. {{ShowEvent|Pirate Lab/Meeting/25 03 2017, WikiSquad/Meeting/11 03 2017|sort = true}})
  • Export event(s) as iCalendar, with {{Event ics|workgroup=Workgroup|type=Meeting}} or {{Event ics|Event page}} for a single event.
  • Display events on a map, with {{MapEvents|Workgroup|type=Meeting}}

Done

Create a Help:Events

• Documentation on how to use the events system, see #Events
• Currently at Help:Contents#Creating_events
• Tutorial for creating a new calendar on Thunderbird: Help:Contents/Events/Thunderbird

Main Page

• A first version of the main page has been released on 13th March 2017
• There is an ongoing discussion about the Help/Welcome section on Main Page test and Talk:Main Page test
• We've got our current main page for a while now and I don't hear complaints. I assume we can place this under done for now?--Ilja (talk) 23:57, 15 July 2017 (CEST)

Meeting form

We created a standard form so that people can easily create an event page on the wiki.

Crew form

We created a standard form so that people can easily create a crew page on the wiki.

Wiki-manual

• Added the use of the different Forms to the manual.
• Updateed the pad-section. We now have pads that do use https, so the warning that pads might not show must be updated.
• Added a link to the Help:Conventions somewhere
  • this was already in the help section, I added it to the Extra resources --Ilja (talk) 20:54, 16 March 2017 (CET)

Top Menu

• Simplified the top menu
• It only appears on the Main Page now