The Fortress Forever Wiki

[Respect38]

Alright, so, I have something to say about the wiki, so I'll try to say it as well as I can.

Before I begin, let me say that I think that the wiki is the face of a game. Maybe this is just a personal thing for me, but whenever I begin playing any game whatsoever, I immediately go to find if it has a wiki, and try to get as much info on the game that I can before I immerse myself into the game.

That said, let us look at our (if I may say "our") wiki, to see where it stands as is. When I visit, I'm opened to this page. This page itself could use some organizing, but it isn't really much of a problem. I can find most of anything I'm looking for right from the main page, which is a good thing.

Now, for the actual pages. The class pages are overall written fine. Looking at the Medic page, for example, I immediately learn two things from the page--Medic's are concussed for half the time, and cannot suffer from infection. The page has served its job, excellent.

Hm. Well, I'm a TF2 fan, so I think I'll check out the 2fort page here, huh? Well, there is barely any information here... Not only that, it appears to be so for every map page there is... Some have a lot of pictures, but not much information to help me link the info to map strategy.

Not only that, but some pages give completely false information, contradicting what others say. Just an example, the Shotgun page, and the weapon references guide, give me different damage totals, 24 and 22 respectively.

So, what's the problem? Well, to answer that question, let me point you to something about the TF2 wiki, and I'm sure in wikis in general. We see here that the wiki actually organizes itself to make the system more efficient, so we can spot what to fix, and allow other teammates do some of that work if needed.

"Maybe this is going on behind the scenes?" I thought. But, looking at the recent changes we see that not a single change has been made to the wiki in the previous 30 DAYS! Unless I'm missing something, that is.

Am I asking for everyone to stop playing FF and get to the wiki? No, not necessarily. If we put the effort together to work to a point where we can collectively and slowly work to a better wiki, then it will someday be up to standards. Thing is, this wiki has lasted too long to still be in the unpolished state that it is.

Or, we can wait until whatever the devs are trying to do to bring more people in, and then fix the wiki... it's fine whichever way you guys want. If we have no volunteers, then nothing will get done. However, I believe that until we have some people step up with the interest to bring the wiki up to 100% 4* articles, then I don't think we'll see that first volunteer. I know I won't, but if I see that interest, I'll help in whatever way I can.

tl;dr, wiki needs some work.

Thanks,
Respect

[Agent Buckshot Moose]

Anyone can edit the wiki.

[Respect38]

Originally Posted by Agent Buckshot Moose

Anyone can edit the wiki.

Of course they can. Problem is, I'm in the group of people that just don't know what needs to be done.

The other group of people simply don't care, seen by the lack of recent changes despite the numerous changes that need to be made.

Good organization would fix this.

The TODO list is OK at the moment, but it could do so much more.

[Crazycarl]

If you see some information that is wrong, by all means change it. As for the map pages, anyone can help by taking screen shots and uploading them onto the page. Writing detailed strategies is a lot of work, but any description is better than a stub page.

I try to go through the wiki each patch and change any wrong or out-of-date information, but it's hard to catch it all. The point of a wiki is to be bold, and to add in whatever you'd like to see. Remember TF2 has thousands of fans, while we have dozens. Any one person willing to put in a little work makes a difference.

[squeek.]

You should have seen it a couple years ago. The current wiki is a huge improvement over what it used to be thanks to a huge effort from community members a few years back.

Given that, though, it would be really nice to see it brought up to date by someone just going through the patch notes. For example, medics actually no longer get concussed for half the time as of patch 2.42 (- Made the concussion status effect last 10 seconds for all classes (down from 15 seconds for non-medic/scout classes and up from 7.5 for medic/scout)).

[Respect38]

Originally Posted by Crazycarl

If you see some information that is wrong, by all means change it. As for the map pages, anyone can help by taking screen shots and uploading them onto the page. Writing detailed strategies is a lot of work, but any description is better than a stub page.

I try to go through the wiki each patch and change any wrong or out-of-date information, but it's hard to catch it all. The point of a wiki is to be bold, and to add in whatever you'd like to see. Remember TF2 has thousands of fans, while we have dozens. Any one person willing to put in a little work makes a difference.

Which is why I did point out that the wiki has existed for ~8 years, while TF2's has existed for going on 2. We see that TF2's wiki has so much more info that ours, and I believe it's because of the issue of organization.

Sure, that one person could go through and try to fix a lot of the problems they see, but I personally find it hard to find the will to do so, because I see nothing being done to improve the wiki. If you guys don't care, why should I care?

Originally Posted by squeek.

You should have seen it a couple years ago. The current wiki is a huge improvement over what it used to be thanks to a huge effort from community members a few years back.

Given that, though, it would be really nice to see it brought up to date by someone just going through the patch notes. For example, medics actually no longer get concussed for half the time as of patch 2.42 (- Made the concussion status effect last 10 seconds for all classes (down from 15 seconds for non-medic/scout classes and up from 7.5 for medic/scout)).

If we had the organization (man, I'm using that word a lot) that other wikis demonstrate, then we could have that movement going on in a constant way. We would continue to improve.

If you just work where you wait till it's a mess, and then try to go clean up, the clean up is much more of a hassle. If you start cleaning it up now, one at a time, as slowly as is needed, then it's so much better.

I hope I'm making sense.

[Agent Buckshot Moose]

Originally Posted by mariofan38

Of course they can. Problem is, I'm in the group of people that just don't know what needs to be done.

Looks like you already have a list in your first post. Start there.

[FDA_Approved]

Originally Posted by Agent Buckshot Moose

Looks like you already have a list in your first post. Start there.

I think what he's saying is he personally doesn't have the information that he'd like to see on the wiki. He's come here to ask the more experienced and knowledgable people.

You can't just ask someone brand new to go fix our wiki.

[NeonLight]

Yeah the Wiki does seem to be lacking a lot. I guess I'll work on the map pages to start off. Been looking for something to do lately.

[Crazycarl]

mariofan, first I want to say thanks for keeping us on our toes. I did spend some time fixing a few inaccuracies and will do more when I have the time.

The whole point of a wiki is that the organization is bottom-up. The people running Wikipedia don't tell people what pages need to be created. People notice gaps, and they do the work themselves, within the guidelines. If everybody waits around for somebody to tell them what to do, nothing will ever get done.

If you find that the wiki is missing important information, feel free to edit the TODO page or the page in question requesting that the info be filled in.

[Respect38]

Well, I noticed that one of the links was completely messed up, I copy/pasted one too many links, it seems.

The fact that nobody noticed (?) makes me wonder if anyone read the OP...

Anyway, if you guys plan to keep up the pace, then what you're doing would be fine. Obviously, the intent of the thread was to put together something that would allow for that push attitude to stay, and not stagnate like it did before this thread--yet, the lack of activity the previous 2 days makes me feel like that push attitude isn't there--and that's not making fun of any of y'all, this happening is exactly what I expected to happen, and is why I chose to post about the need to get organized rather than the need to create a wiki army for 2 days to get some stuff fixed, while still leaving the rest of the wiki in a relative mess.

At this point, I'm just going to lay low. If I'm wandering the wiki and notice something that I know is just plain incorrect, I will fix it. Otherwise, I will leave it to you guys to do whatever you please. I just wanted to help.

[CaptainAhab]

I will add anything to the Wiki that I can to without providing false information and f*king anything up.

[Respect38]

I just had a thought for something we could add here...

The Official TF2 Wiki has a page that gives all kinds of information about all the projectile weapons in the game. Speed, arch, sticks, reflectable, and "destroyed by".

Well, information about projectile speed can be found by surfing through each weapon page, so I think it would be a neat idea to condense this information into one, uniform page. For comparison purposes, for players coming out of TF2.

Also, we have reached another "no changes in 30 days" period again, so I'd figure I should bump this so the wiki gets some more attention. Since I'm requesting that a Wiki tab be added to the main page that Rice is working on, getting the Wiki up to standard is a must...

[squeek.]

Originally Posted by Respect38

I just had a thought for something we could add here...

The Official TF2 Wiki has a page that gives all kinds of information about all the projectile weapons in the game. Speed, arch, sticks, reflectable, and "destroyed by".

Well, information about projectile speed can be found by surfing through each weapon page, so I think it would be a neat idea to condense this information into one, uniform page. For comparison purposes, for players coming out of TF2.

Like this? http://www.fortress-forever.com/wiki...erence:Weapons

[Respect38]

Originally Posted by squeek.

Like this? http://www.fortress-forever.com/wiki...erence:Weapons

Oh.

I didn't know that was there.

Yes, that's what I was referring to.

But weren't we discussing earlier about how some of that info contradicts the individual weapons pages?

What to trust, what to trust...