Open the Wiki

Want to change something on the site? Or add new features?
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qqwref
Posts: 125
Joined: Thu Sep 23, 2010 4:17 pm

Open the Wiki

Post by qqwref »

I think the minesweeper.info wiki should be open for anyone to contribute - that is, anyone can create an account and start editing the pages. The wiki format is designed for this type of work, and for many people to collaborate on creating an article over time. The current way the wiki is run just doesn't properly take advantage of a wiki's ability to be a dictionary of all of the information associated with a topic.

I've done a significant amount of work in the speedsolving.com wiki, and watched it evolve, and at this point it's a pretty good resource for someone wanting to learn a lot about cubing - just like our wiki could be, if there were many more articles. A great example of the strength of a properly organized wiki is this page, a list of algorithms (move sequences) for a common substep in cube solving. If only a few people had access to this page, you'd have nowhere near the wealth of information, and they'd probably get burned out quickly from the amount of work involved. And that's just a single big page. Writing articles like this would be a lot of work if you were one person, but it's no big deal if you're an entire community.

Of course, to keep a wiki running and avoid vandalism, it's necessary to have at least one person who regularly checks it and tries to improve the quality. When the msinfo community gets much bigger, this could easily form by itself, with nobody formally in charge. But for now, I'd be happy to take charge.
NF player. Best scores 1-10-39.
EWQMinesweeper
Posts: 419
Joined: Sun Nov 30, 2008 11:50 pm

Re: Open the Wiki

Post by EWQMinesweeper »

before posting here, qq and i had a discussion on this on irc, in which i mentioned that people should still be required to login before being allowed to edit the wiki. i also mentioned that i, whom people could currently approach for minore changes in already existing articles, would be glad to help qq.
„Das perlt jetzt aber richtig über, ma sagn. Mach ma' noch'n Bier! Wie heißt das? Biddä! Bidddää! Biddddäää! Reiner Weltladen!“
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Tommy
Posts: 257
Joined: Mon Dec 01, 2008 9:22 pm
Location: Vienna

Re: Open the Wiki

Post by Tommy »

I agree, opening the wiki would be a good idea - I think vandalism will be at a minimum anyway, as we can still ban people who do stuff like that, and as the wiki remembers changes anyway.

Having the ability to login as a requirement is a great idea, it reduces the set of people that have access to exactly those who can, and most likely will, post constructive content.
Don't anthropomorphize computers - they don't like it.
qqwref
Posts: 125
Joined: Thu Sep 23, 2010 4:17 pm

Re: Open the Wiki

Post by qqwref »

Hi, here are some of my ideas for more things to include in the Wiki:
- "List of board sizes" article, plus an article for each relatively well-known board size.
- Articles for important MS players - fast people, administrators, cheaters, etc.
- Articles for major MS versions, including official clones and popular unofficial versions.
- Many pages on strategy (ideally a separate one for each major technique, with explanations/tutorials linked) plus some "hub" type pages to link to them.
- "List of Minesweeper statistics" article with categories for speed (time, 3bv/s, zini/s, etc), efficiency (throughput, ioe, zne, etc), and board difficulty (3bv, zini, obv, etc), and of course articles for each of those.
- A more expanded page on cheating - links to full articles on Elmar Technique, UPK, sped-up replays, Funny Mode, etc. and explanations on why each type of play is considered unfair.
- More info about mathematical ideas such as board cycles, probability, optimal solving, NP-completeness, etc., possibly spread into multiple articles for better readability.

It will be a relatively big project, but I think having a ton of information about the community on the wiki would really help out beginners. Right now there are many things that require either asking people on IRC or looking through past guestbooks or dead websites. A lot of info on the wiki would help out newcomers to understand things better, as well as provide a record so that interesting ideas don't get lost.
NF player. Best scores 1-10-39.
EWQMinesweeper
Posts: 419
Joined: Sun Nov 30, 2008 11:50 pm

Re: Open the Wiki

Post by EWQMinesweeper »

i agree with most of it and already have a lot of ideas but i think the cheating issue should be handled with care. one of our biggest advantages over cheaters is that they are not aware of the critical aspects of a faked solve. the obvious ones like ET are already explained or self-explanatory. a basic description of what is considered a normal solve plus some allowed exceptions should be enough.
„Das perlt jetzt aber richtig über, ma sagn. Mach ma' noch'n Bier! Wie heißt das? Biddä! Bidddää! Biddddäää! Reiner Weltladen!“
qqwref
Posts: 125
Joined: Thu Sep 23, 2010 4:17 pm

Re: Open the Wiki

Post by qqwref »

Well, I don't mean we should necessarily explain exactly how to use certain techniques and which ones are easy or hard to detect - but we should at least have enough info for people to know what we mean when we say "the mouse movement doesn't look human", or to understand why the community considers stuff like UPK unfair.

Also, with the expanding of the Wiki content, some pages such as "List of Cheaters" or "Trivia" may end up split into many articles. I think it would end up being easier to read and to update, and we could add any relevant info without worrying that we are making certain articles far too long.
NF player. Best scores 1-10-39.
EWQMinesweeper
Posts: 419
Joined: Sun Nov 30, 2008 11:50 pm

Re: Open the Wiki

Post by EWQMinesweeper »

when we are suspicious about mouse movements we shouldn't say that we think they look inhuman. wouldn't it be better to simply ask people who sent in a replay with questionable legitimacy to explain the suspicious mouse movements?
„Das perlt jetzt aber richtig über, ma sagn. Mach ma' noch'n Bier! Wie heißt das? Biddä! Bidddää! Biddddäää! Reiner Weltladen!“
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