OniGalore:Current events: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 00:18, 4 May 2013

WIKI WORK IS FUN!

ENOUGH FOR A JOKE OR TWO THEN IT GETS BORING

These are only suggestions, although some are more obviously needed than others.

Whatever in this list looks interesting to you, feel free to tackle it, even if you only have a little time here and there.

However, if you are leaving a project half-done until you can resume it, please note that under the item in this list.

Thanks for whatever you can do to contribute.

If you're not confident about editing a wiki, check out our Help page, and meta.wikimedia.org for further reference.

General wiki work

Look at the list of flagged articles and see if there's anything you can help out with.
Just browse Special:Wantedpages, and pick an interesting topic to write about!

Improving the documentation

File types overview suggestion

I'd like to throw a general blueprint out there and see if there's any in agreement, or at least any who disagree. It concerns what we're doing with our modding-related articles on the wiki, which is generally One Big Mess right now. The basic principle behind these changes is simple: "groups things logically; present information clearly".

Proposal for organizing things:

write an interlocking (interlinking!) page for OBD (called something like Overview of file types) that explains in plain English what each file does; this puts it all in one place, unlike putting summaries at the top of each page so that a newbie has to follow each file type link to that page to read about the file type; for the format would be something like:

"==QXRF== The QXRF type is for tracking the hats the characters are wearing; hat geometries are stored in VPRW files. At level-load, Oni scans the QXRF array and loads the VPRWs. Then, it textures them with the hat textures stored in BINA/LDWF and applies them using the UV maps in that BINA resource that are in the FLSJ format." -- each four-letter type links to an subheading on the same page that explains that type more fully but without any technical details; until this is done, the hard work performed in reverse-engineering these files is shadowed in obscurity for newbies because of the lack of plain English in the OBD pages

New idea: use the <onlyinclude> tags on explanatory paragraphs at the start of each file type article. Then, transclude every article onto the Overview of file types page, or whatever it'll be called, and only the explanations will get carried over and compiled into one page. The only catch is that this method would only allow the blurbs to link between other file type pages, or other sections of that overview page; we couldn't have it both ways.

Actually, there's a way to get either kind of link depending on where the text is being transcluded: using an #if: statement in league with the {{PAGENAME}} variable. {{PAGENAME}} actually looks at which page the data appears on, not where it's transcluded from. Voila!

BSL tutorial(s)

Despite its relative simplicity, BSL is vastly underdocumented. Most of the stuff is well-known to experts, but designing a comprehensive guide that will get novice scripters started and keep them going requires didactic skills and lots of patience. There are a few programming language basics that someone ought to say a little about (like functions or operators). Long-term goals are: a cross-referenced set of mini-tutorials that document the functions and variables in a standalone way (see, e.g., ai2_allpassive); maybe a functional breakdown of an original script (see HERE); and redirects so that typing the name of the variable/function in the Go/Search box leads to just the right place.

Oni 2 and beyond...

Some fans use the wiki to write sequels, prequels, interquels (what may have happened to Konoko in the time gaps between the original chapters, e.g., between Chapter 12 and Chapter 13) or even paraquels (e.g., what was happening on the Syndicate side during Oni?). You can then list your work HERE. Just be aware of the rights issues attendant with posting fan fics here. Also, plagiarism is not nice, but "Oni 2" can still be influenced by anime/cyberpunk/other references. See HERE to review the influences so far, elaborate on them some more, or point out new ones.

@@ Line 17: / Line 17: @@
-===General wiki work===
+==General wiki work==
 *Look at the list of [[:Category:Flagged articles|flagged articles]] and see if there's anything you can help out with.
 *Just browse [[Special:Wantedpages]], and pick an interesting topic to write about!
-===Organizing the modding side of the wiki===
+==Improving the documentation==
+===File types overview suggestion===
 I'd like to throw a general blueprint out there and see if there's any in agreement, or at least any who disagree. It concerns what we're doing with our modding-related articles on the wiki, which is generally One Big Mess right now. The basic principle behind these changes is simple: "groups things logically; present information clearly".
@@ Line 30: / Line 31: @@
 :::Actually, there's a way to get either kind of link depending on where the text is being transcluded: using an #if: statement in league with the <nowiki>{{PAGENAME}}</nowiki> variable. <nowiki>{{PAGENAME}}</nowiki> actually looks at which page the data appears on, not where it's transcluded from. Voila!
-===Coverage of Oni content===
+===BSL tutorial(s)===
-# The canonical version of Oni is English, so if your language version mistranslated something important, we'd like to know about it. Check out the canonical quotes [[Quotes|HERE]] and point out discrepancies [[Talk:Quotes#Discrepancies|HERE]].
+Despite its relative simplicity, [[BSL]] is vastly underdocumented. Most of the stuff is well-known to experts, but designing a comprehensive guide that will get novice scripters started and keep them going requires didactic skills and ''lots'' of patience. There are a few programming language basics that someone ought to say a little about (like [[BSL:Functions|functions]] or [[BSL:Operators|operators]]). Long-term goals are: a cross-referenced set of mini-tutorials that document the functions and variables in a standalone way (see, e.g., [[ai2_allpassive]]); maybe a functional breakdown of an original script (see [[BSL:Tutorial/airport1_level_logic.bsl|HERE]]); and redirects so that typing the name of the variable/function in the Go/Search box leads to just the right place.
-# Some characters pages are stubs and/or feature inaccurate/incomplete information: [[Kerr]], [[Hasegawa]], [[Griffin]]... Try to objectively present the content actually present ingame. Most of these characters appear in the [[:Category:Characters|Characters]] category. You can speculate and elaborate in the [[:Category:Added value|Added value]] section (typically the second half of a page). See [[Muro]] for an example.
-# Some [[Chapters|chapter]] pages may have incorrect/incomplete plot summaries: they're also supposed to be concise, linking to other pages whenever the summary or the [[:Category:Added value|Added value]] section starts growing out of shape.
-# Places (like [[Regional State Building]]) and entities (like [[BGI]]) typically deserve a page of their own, meant to take some load off the Chapter summaries, both in terms of "facts" and "added value", while providing more or less technical trivia.
-====and beyond...====
-# Some fans use the wiki to write sequels, prequels, interquels (what may have happened to Konoko in the time gaps between the original chapters, e.g., between Chapter 12 and Chapter 13) or even paraquels (e.g., what was happening on the Syndicate side during Oni?). You can then list your work [[Oni2|HERE]]. Just be aware of the [[OniGalore:Copyrights|rights issues]] attendant with posting fan fics here.
-# Plagiarism is not nice, but "Oni 2" can still be influenced by anime/cyberpunk/other references. See [[:Category:Oni 2 influences|HERE]] to review the influences so far, elaborate on them some more, or point out new ones.
-===Adding to the databases===
+==Oni 2 and beyond...==
-# Despite its relative simplicity, [[BSL]] is vastly underdocumented. Most of the stuff is well-known to experts, but designing a comprehensive guide that will get novice scripters started and keep them going requires didactic skills and ''lots'' of patience. There are a few programming language basics that someone ought to say a little about (like [[BSL:Functions|functions]] or [[BSL:Operators|operators]]). Long-term goals are: a cross-referenced set of mini-tutorials that document the [[BSL:Preset|preset]] functions and variables in a standalone way (see, e.g., [[ai2_allpassive]]); maybe a functional breakdown of the original scripts (see, e.g., [[BSL:Tutorial/airport1_level_logic.bsl|HERE]]); and redirects so that typing the name of the variable/function in the Go/Search box leads to just the right place.
+Some fans use the wiki to write sequels, prequels, interquels (what may have happened to Konoko in the time gaps between the original chapters, e.g., between Chapter 12 and Chapter 13) or even paraquels (e.g., what was happening on the Syndicate side during Oni?). You can then list your work [[Oni2|HERE]]. Just be aware of the [[OniGalore:Copyrights|rights issues]] attendant with posting fan fics here. Also, plagiarism is not nice, but "Oni 2" can still be influenced by anime/cyberpunk/other references. See [[:Category:Oni 2 influences|HERE]] to review the influences so far, elaborate on them some more, or point out new ones.
-# There's still progress to be made in the field of [[OBD|binary hacking]]. Note the "OK?" column on [[OBD:File_types]]. Any page not marked with a happy face still has data stored within that file type that is not understood.
 [[Category:Policies and documentation]]