Topic: Welcome to Weeniepedia

[Rivers]

OK folks, weeniecampbell.com is entering a new era tonight because Weeniepedia is now alive and kicking.

Basically this means we now have a whole new way of supporting forum content. Previously we were locked-in to a monolithic content management system for housing accumulated... stuff. We now have our very own in-house wiki with all the benefits it affords.

So what are these benefits?

1. Slice and dice. We can group and access the content by various different routes.
2. Improved navigation through automatic indexing and linking.
3. Openness, with control. We can open it up to qualified weenies (5 forum posts or more) and easily roll-back any vandalism.
4. Ease of content creation. Making a wiki page is pretty easy.
5. Scalability. The site can now grow virtually unrestrictedly.

Some of the benefits will only become apparent to us all as we use the software.

There are some trade-offs. We've worked hard to define a structure that wrings out the maximum functionality from the software. So for the greater benefit of the site as a whole we're going to have to a) communicate that structure and b) keep the thing on track where it strays. Please follow the advice of the wiki sysops, they have been through the mill on this and know from experience how it works best for the site as a whole. That's not to say ideas are discouraged, on the contrary. Just run them by here first.

The last few weeks have been pretty incredible as the mods collectively clawed their way up the learning curve by their fingernails. There were some fairly, er, lively discussions at times, balanced by some very cool moments as we all began to understand how the wiki works and what it can do in great detail. Suffice to say we're all still friends.

On behalf of all the brave souls who have worked on this project thanks in advance for participating in Weeniepedia, and let's make this thing work to its full potential.

The link is on the left menu, or to go there directly click http://www.weeniecampbell.com/wiki/

Please dive in and explore, below that inscrutable front page there is a huge amount of content already on the site. Many of the pages are works in progress to be fleshed-out over time, and there are some gaping holes to be filled by you guys.

[Slack]

mods collectively clawed their way up the learning curve by their fingernails.

You do have a way with words. 

[uncle bud]

Several mods required blood thinners!

[tenderfoot84]

hi,

i think the weeniepedia is a fantastic idea. is there any way that the links between threads in weeniecampbell can be dropped into weeniepedia so that there is a base of info which doesn't link into this site but which contains a lot of the goldmine of information already built up over the years...  or do wee all just build it up from scratch?

[Slack]

Hi David, we don't want to re-create verbatim what is on the forum.  The forum is an informal exchange of ideas and information.  The wiki is an attempt to present some of the information on the forum in a more organized and formal way.  Lyrics are a good example.  There are long exchanges as folks work out 'difficult to hear' lyrics.  They are in one topic, many different lyrics, many exchanges of ideas.  Once the lyrics are worked out, we can now put the lyric on the wiki, on it's own page where it can be categorized and attached to other categories and presented in various ways.  Where it applies, we've also been including a link back to the forum, to the original topic, in case anyone is interested in the hows and whys of that particular lyric.  The linking between forum<->wiki can of course be two way and the wiki will contain information that is not on the forum at all.

Hope that answers your question..?

[NevadaPic]

Folks,

I had a look at progress so far on the Weeniepedia.  Well done!  I guess I will contribute as I am able. 

Pic

[Mr.OMuck]

Thanks for putting this together all! I went to have a peek in Safari, my preferred browser, and it was not displaying correctly. Overlarge type and frames overlapping each other. It looked fine in Firefox however. Are there plans to rectify the Safari issue?

[Slack]

Are there plans to rectify the Safari issue?

We have a work around, which we'll make better at some point. Please see the section heading "Browsers".

http://www.weeniecampbell.com/wiki/index.php?title=Weeniepedia_User_Guide

[uncle bud]

When I tested on Safari, I had to upgrade to version 3, from 2-point-something, to get rid of the overlapping etc. Running the software update helped with that, but the user menus on the left unfortunately only started waaay down the page. Switching to the Classic Skin by going to My Preferences --> Skin and switching to Classic solved that. It gives you a plainer, whiter Weeniepedia, but at least everything is there on screen, as far as I can tell.

By the way, has anyone looked at it using Safari for Windows? That's one thing I don't think we tested. Any early adopters out there?

[Rivers]

The key thing to remember folks is that weeniepedia exists to support the forum. It's the final destination for content that has been through several people's senses and collectively agreed upon. There is absolutely no intention to replace the forum with the wiki, the two are complementary; the forum is ideal for semi-interactive communication, and the wiki is ideal for storing semi-finished content items originally created on forum.

In other words you could say we're using the wiki as a repository for (mostly) final drafts of content items that have already been presented to, and possibly beaten to a pulp, on the forum. New content, and even additions/changes to existing content, should, as a general rule, unless they're really trivial tidy-ups, always hit the forum first. If they have the 'legs' they'll make it to weeniepedia.

Sorry for not making that clear in the first post. Please regard weeniepedia as a slave to the forum and always post here first, unless it's an old wiki-hand like Stefan Wirz adding bullet markers where we forgot to do so (danke sch?n Stefan)!

The additional benefits of talking it through on the forum are that once it's clear where it fits the wiki mods can show you how to dovetail the new content into the wiki by setting up the indexing. That does require some fairly detailed knowledge of how it works.

[SteveMcBill]

Just spent 3/4 of an hour on Weeniepedia and I love it !!!! So much there already and so, so much potential for the future.

Many thanks to all the mods who put time, effort, and brainpower into this - it is very much appreciated. Thank you.

Steve