SL New Look

[techumseh]

Originally posted by St Leo
You are getting the forum system back.

The wiki will replace the current site, not the forums. You don't want to see the evil pages that I use to administrate the sleague site right now. Both Boco and DarthVeda couldn't make sense of them at all.

Decisions about the future of the SL site have always been made by the community, and by concensus. Are you suggesting that you are going to proceed on your own authority, without the agreement of the community?

[St Leo]

Here's how I see things.

The site was dead in the water between 1999 and 2002 due to the departure of Blackclove et al. In May 2002, WarVoid and I volunteered to work on it anew. WarVoid experienced unsolveable FTP difficulties, and ended up moderating the forum while I updated the site.

I redesigned the layout and put up the current navigation structure. Eventually, Markos let me have a MySQL database. I took advantage of that by whipping up a new way of displaying downloads, reviews, links, and eventually news.

At various times, Boco and DarthVeda were recruited to help me out with the site, but the backend forms are rather unpleasant and not well documented, so they both kinda bounced off after a while.

Right now, I am the only one working on the site, and I've been doing a rather crappy job. The Spanish Civ2 Site particularly has been dancing in circles around us. I can't really recruit anyone else to help out, and making the required quantum improvement in the backend is beyond me.


Well, what are our options?

We can do nothing. The site continues to decay into bitrot while I add a file or two every three months or so. A Great Library thread on the forums can link to all the tips already there. Ditto for the reviews.

A blog? Well, WordPress is really pretty, but it can't do much beyond posting news. It would just be a different way of doing CivGroup news. Kinda pointless IMHO. (BTW, if you guys want to post news on the current website, I can fix you up.)

What else is there? PHPnuke sucks. It's ugly and unpleasant to use. DeviantArt is great, but there's no publicly available code and asking me to rewrite DeviantArt from scratch isn't reasonable.

A wiki like MediaWiki is ideal. We'll keep in place everything that's in place right now, but the wiki will be the first thing a visitor to sleague.apolyton.net will see.

We can slowly move everything that's currently on the site into one coherent layout. Reviews can easily be incorporated -- screenshots and all. Magazine articles will be easy to put up.

With a wiki, I won't be crucial to keeping the site going anymore. Mercator or DarthVeda or BeBro or whoever would be able to manage it just as effectively as I, whereas the current site can't be managed by anyone besides me. If I get hit by a car, someone will have to redevelop SLeague while juggling the two legacy versions around. A wiki provides for a smooth transition.

Again, all the current pages and content will remain in place.

I am asking for permission to move http://sleague.apolyton.net/index.php to indexold.php and make the new index.php a wiki. Comments?

[Broken_Erika]

as long as it runs smoothly it's all good to me,

[techumseh]

Here's how I see things. The forum crash presented a real opportunity to reinvent ourselves. For various reasons, a redesigned SL site was seen as the key. I offered to help design one, and at every step I've consulted with members on the forum.

Concerns with the wiki proposal have come from a number of people, including Curt and Fairline. According to my count, only 3 people are actively promoting the wiki idea. I think many of us would just like to see how it works on part of the site first, on a trial basis. Maybe we'll love it. I can say that the wiki sites I've checked out, including the Freeciv one, are sterile looking.

I would like to see the new site design finalized and uploaded. I think the existing site should be left as is, as an archive. A few reviews can be transferred as can the tips if that's not too onerous - otherwise just a link will do. Otherwise, it's a brand new site. Content can be transferred regularly from the forums.

If you need some help, I'm willing and maybe others are too. I had access to the Cradle site for a while a couple of years ago and as far as I remember it was straight FTP. I don't know why SL can't be as well.

[Cyrion]

Originally posted by curtsibling
Personally, I couldn't care less about 'my' postcount, but
many newer posters will fall away now, demoralised at
losing so many posts....

The admin should do something.

Fully agree on this: I don't care much about my own postcount (once a king, always a king), but something should be done so as not to demoralize those for whom it matters!


And then about more important matters: I didn't express on the new SL before because:
1) I didn't know much about the things proposed
2) and was too busy (shame!) to seriously reflect upon it...

Anyway, here are my 2 cents: as long as I can still use the forum as I did (with the threads proposed reorganization, which seem to make sense!), and if the new SL isn't too hard to use (even for me...), then I'll gladly accept any proposition on its structure!

And one more thing: if we can find a way to simplify the SL upkeep, that would:
1) allow St-Leo to update it more often
2) allow St-Leo to enlist help to upkeep the site (which would give him more time to, for instance, create a new scenario, which, if I'm not mistaken, he hasn't done in a while... )

And BTW: thanks to St-Leo and the others who spend time to maintain the SL and this forum! I really appreciate that!

[curtsibling]

Originally posted by techumseh
Here's how I see things. The forum crash presented a real opportunity to reinvent ourselves. For various reasons, a redesigned SL site was seen as the key. I offered to help design one, and at every step I've consulted with members on the forum.

Concerns with the wiki proposal have come from a number of people, including Curt and Fairline. According to my count, only 3 people are actively promoting the wiki idea. I think many of us would just like to see how it works on part of the site first, on a trial basis. Maybe we'll love it. I can say that the wiki sites I've checked out, including the Freeciv one, are sterile looking.

I would like to see the new site design finalized and uploaded. I think the existing site should be left as is, as an archive. A few reviews can be transferred as can the tips if that's not too onerous - otherwise just a link will do. Otherwise, it's a brand new site. Content can be transferred regularly from the forums.

If you need some help, I'm willing and maybe others are too. I had access to the Cradle site for a while a couple of years ago and as far as I remember it was straight FTP. I don't know why SL can't be as well.

This is how I see it...

I agree with techumseh's assessment.

And, if this forum gets screwed (again) because of a wiki transfer not working/being buggy/exploding...
....then it is goodnight vienna for this CIV2 community.

Although it is interesting how St. leo has now went ahead and
requested the ability to make this transition over the heads
of the posters...But we are told this is not elitism.

I am with Tech on the fact that a new site should be
completed, and the forum used as the main meeting place.
Tech's new site design has much promise...As always,
this forum should be the primary priority for the CIV community.

I also am happy to see the wiki idea given a try, as I know
they are useful (if concise and well-designed) but do not
be surprised at poster confusion.

What I am seeing is wiki being pushed in the face of any comments or other concerns.

I can see that various admin wish to keep the SL site active, and that is commendable.
If we are to try out wiki, why not experiment on the SL site's index file?

I should have much respect for St. Leo's efforts in staying
at the controls of the SL site, without reward or pay, but
we should see a trial run of the wiki that does not endanger
our community before we are forced into it at bayonet-point.

.

[fairline]

I like the proposed look of the site put forward by Techumseh, and I'm still not convinced that the Scenario League site needs the level of open access to all material that a wiki would give. The one exception to this is obviously the tips and advice section where knowledge is being accumulated as time progresses. This has been asked by Tech and Curt already I think, so please excuse me if I've missed the answer: is it possible to integrate a wiki section within the overall framework of the SLeague site as envisaged by Techumseh?

As my ignorance knows no bounds on matters relating to website design, is there some advantage to using a Wiki for the entire site which I'm missing? Would this perhaps be the ease of setting the thing up and maintaining it which Leo has hinted at? If so, does this outweigh security issues which might arise due to vandalism (or just as bad the level of spamming we get on the forum) of an open site?

If the problem with using a traditional site format is willing helpers, then I guess it's time to put my money where my mouth is and offer my services; it's questionable how much use these would be, but I'm willing to learn

Some musings about the content of the new site, whether it's FTP or Wiki or whatever:

If I think back to what attracted me to Civ sites when I was a casual browser, I guess that there were a couple of things that made me add the site to my favourites. First and foremost, a good range of quality scenarios which are sensibly catagorised by genre/epoch are an absolute must. See the Spanish site as the ultimate model of how this is done; this was always my favourite site before I became a civ obsessive It would be a nice touch to integrate reviews with info about each scenario.

Second up, and this is no doubt going top ruffle some feathers, I loved sites with good replacement graphics; but then I would say that I suppose. Tips and advice about scenario design would be next up, followed by a 'beginners guide' page which describes in detail how to use scenarios, how to mod the game graphically, and which includes links to relevant tools (Mercator and Gothmog's sites) - take a look at this site for the flight sim EAW for an excellent example of the kind of page I'm thinking about:

http://www.xmission.com/~mmagleby/eaw/guide.htm

Any thoughts about stuff I've missed?

[curtsibling]

European Air War *sobs*

Best WW2 flight sim of all time!

[CapTVK]

Yes, you can integrate a wiki with a normal website. Techumseh's website can perfectly serve as a framework for the entire site. A Wiki can form a subpart of that site and with the help of templates you can give pages created through the wiki the same sort of look as Techumseh's design. I don't know how far a Wiki's html layout abilities go, but you can do a lot of things, comparable what you can do with a homemade website as well.

The best thing is just try it out . Use Techumseh's layout and start small with a wiki for the design& tips section. Wiki's need to grow. If it works well, perhaps in the future we might decide to turn other parts of the website to wikipages too, who knows?

Originally posted by fairline
This has been asked by Tech and Curt already I think, so please excuse me if I've missed the answer: is it possible to integrate a wiki section within the overall framework of the SLeague site as envisaged by Techumseh?

As my ignorance knows no bounds on matters relating to website design, is there some advantage to using a Wiki for the entire site which I'm missing? Would this perhaps be the ease of setting the thing up and maintaining it which Leo has hinted at? If so, does this outweigh security issues which might arise due to vandalism (or just as bad the level of spamming we get on the forum) of an open site?

The main argument for a Wiki comes down to maintenance and generating good content with help from the community. Setting up a community site isn't a problem, it's maintaining one that's the killer.

Are there vandalism and security issues? Yes, there's a possibility for mucking up a page or spamming. However, because old pages are always saved you can easily repair the damage if need be. It would of course be reasonable to include logins for editing and adding pages and "lock" some pages against tampering. The Freeciv site does this for instance.


The best advice i can give at this point is to try it yourself. Go to the sandbox at www.wikipedia.org, type a few lines and see what happens.

If the problem with using a traditional site format is willing helpers, then I guess it's time to put my money where my mouth is and offer my services; it's questionable how much use these would be, but I'm willing to learn

And that would be a breeze with a Wiki

[Boco]

The best thing is just try it out . Use Techumseh's layout and start small with a wiki for the design& tips section. Wiki's need to grow.

This is exactly what I was hoping for. Test Wiki using a section for which we know it could benefit. Both 'Designing Tips' and the SLeague Index (i.e. a news section) fit the bill for me (that's a yes vote, LP). This way we can learn firsthand the advantages and disadvantages of the new format. Plus the site still has areas reserved for read-only files and link(s) to this forum.

St. Leo
You don't want to see the evil pages that I use to administrate the sleague site right now. Both Boco and DarthVeda couldn't make sense of them at all.

Although this is well within my sizeable realm of ignorance, at the moment I don't recall making the attempt. I am, however, fearful of plumbing the depths of your spaghetti.

[techumseh]

In the meantime.... do people want sound in the pages of the site, or not? I've put one 30 second mp3 clip in the index page. http://www.tecumseh.150m.com/SL_New_Look.html

I have a number of such clips from various action/adventure movie soundtracks. They can be added to different pages in the site - or not.

[fairline]

I like it

Is it possible to loop the clip? I was just getting into it and it stopped D

Which Bond film was that BTW?

[fairline]

Originally posted by CapTVK
Yes, you can integrate a wiki with a normal website. Techumseh's website can perfectly serve as a framework for the entire site.

OK. What do people think about this? Tech's site with a wiki page for tips and advice only?

The best thing is just try it out . Use Techumseh's layout and start small with a wiki for the design& tips section. Wiki's need to grow. If it works well, perhaps in the future we might decide to turn other parts of the website to wikipages too, who knows? .

I had a go yesterday (your link has a rogue comma at the end BTW CapTVK). It seems easy enough, but looks incredibly ugly IMO. Fine for the tips and advice text page, but not good for the whole site.

[techumseh]

I'm not sure looping it would the best thing, Fairline. People either like embedded music or they hate it. What I'd really like is if I could randomize all the music clips I've got - from movies like van Helsing, Sky Captain, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Constantine, Spiderman2 and others. And that clip isn't from a Bond flick - it's from The Incredibles. Incredible, isn't it?

[St Leo]

Apolyton has a big server move next weekend, so no wiki until then.

Uh...

...I am going to go sleep now.

/me escapes