Wiki: Namespace usage

Discuss the community, including forums, xelerus, wiki, chat, and trac.
User avatar
ptbptb
Militia Lieutenant
Militia Lieutenant
Posts: 143
Joined: Mon May 10, 2010 7:34 pm

Should there be an Items namespace?

Advantages

* Avoids clashes between same-name pages of different content.

e.g. [[Items:Armor]] would be a different page to [[Functions:Armor]] which would in turn be different to [[Armor]] (a general page on 'how it works', game hints etc.)

* Arguably a more structured wiki.

Disadvantages

* Searches seem to only return matching pagenames from the current namespace? (Page content itself is still found by search)

* Need to learn / use the format required to link between different namespaces.
User avatar
alterecco
Fleet Officer
Fleet Officer
Posts: 1658
Joined: Wed Jan 14, 2009 3:08 am
Location: Previously enslaved by the Iocrym

I'm all for it, if someone wants to implement it :)
User avatar
ptbptb
Militia Lieutenant
Militia Lieutenant
Posts: 143
Joined: Mon May 10, 2010 7:34 pm

alterecco wrote:I'm all for it, if someone wants to implement it :)
Haha, yes. I'm not going to try doing it manually, that's for sure. The plugin pagemove might do the trick (although it is apparently a little glitchy :-(
User avatar
ptbptb
Militia Lieutenant
Militia Lieutenant
Posts: 143
Joined: Mon May 10, 2010 7:34 pm

OK, on a related note I'm trying to fill out the wiki with regard to the XML elements and attributes used with Transcendence. I think it would make sense to have 'XML' as a separate namespace.

So we would have (potentially)

Root namespace (general Transcendence topics, tutorials, etc.)
|
+--- Functions namespace (tscript)
|
+--- XML namespace (tags, attributes, etc.)
|
+--- Items namespace (data on items in the game)

Does that sound OK to you folks?
User avatar
alterecco
Fleet Officer
Fleet Officer
Posts: 1658
Joined: Wed Jan 14, 2009 3:08 am
Location: Previously enslaved by the Iocrym

I suppose that sounds like a good idea. Namespaces make a lot of sense imo.

However, George has been adding his own content to the wiki, particularly documentation about xml tags and elements, and I am not sure what he has planned, or if he has made a long term plan about the wiki at all.

If you are reading this George, could you chip in? If would not be good to move your pages around if you have some sort of greater design.
george moromisato
Developer
Developer
Posts: 2997
Joined: Thu Jul 24, 2003 9:53 pm
Contact:

Thanks for asking. I don't have strong feelings one way or the other, particularly for Wiki namespaces.

One thing to consider is whether you want lots of namespaces or only a few. For instance, if you have an "Items" namespace does that mean that you will need a "ship classes" namespace and a "stations" namespace, etc? That seems a little unwieldy to me, but I'm happy to let the community decide.

One alternate proposal is to use namespaces only for broad categories:

1. Game namespace: pages that have information useful to players: playing guides, item stats, etc,

2. Mods namespace: pages that have information needed by modders, e.g., Tags and function references, tutorials, etc.

3. Design namespace: pages that have ideas and other info useful for the future development of the core game. E.g., plans for future versions, ideas, etc.

One advantage of the above is that it matches the organization of the Transcendence web site (Game = Explore; Mods = Mods; Design = Design).
User avatar
ptbptb
Militia Lieutenant
Militia Lieutenant
Posts: 143
Joined: Mon May 10, 2010 7:34 pm

george moromisato wrote:Thanks for asking. I don't have strong feelings one way or the other, particularly for Wiki namespaces.

One thing to consider is whether you want lots of namespaces or only a few.
Relatively few. For example I decided it would be better to have an 'XML' namespace rather than have 'Tags' and 'Attributes' separately.
For instance, if you have an "Items" namespace does that mean that you will need a "ship classes" namespace and a "stations" namespace, etc? That seems a little unwieldy to me, but I'm happy to let the community decide.
I'm happy to consider ships and stations to be 'items' (in a loose definition of the same)
One alternate proposal is to use namespaces only for broad categories:

1. Game namespace: pages that have information useful to players: playing guides, item stats, etc,

2. Mods namespace: pages that have information needed by modders, e.g., Tags and function references, tutorials, etc.

3. Design namespace: pages that have ideas and other info useful for the future development of the core game. E.g., plans for future versions, ideas, etc.

One advantage of the above is that it matches the organization of the Transcendence web site (Game = Explore; Mods = Mods; Design = Design).
My general concern is to avoid the problem of 'same name, different meaning'. There are Armor (functions), Armor (items) and Armor (XML element). If I used a Mods namespace I would have to distinguish "Armor (functions)" from "Armor (XML element)". By having functions and XML separate it is (IMO) less awkward when a function name happens to be the same as an XML element or attribute.
User avatar
alterecco
Fleet Officer
Fleet Officer
Posts: 1658
Joined: Wed Jan 14, 2009 3:08 am
Location: Previously enslaved by the Iocrym

OK, thanks for the feedback George.

In general I agree that we should avoid overusing namespaces, however, I think that we at least need a function namespace, since otherwise we will have some pretty ambiguous page titles, such as 'and', 'or', 'while', 'item'. The same could be said for XML elements, where we have tags like 'Armor', 'Items' etc...

ptbptb, I am not entirely sure what you would do with the xml namespace though. Could you specify a bit your ideas for it?
User avatar
ptbptb
Militia Lieutenant
Militia Lieutenant
Posts: 143
Joined: Mon May 10, 2010 7:34 pm

alterecco wrote:ptbptb, I am not entirely sure what you would do with the xml namespace though. Could you specify a bit your ideas for it?
Basically it's information on tags and attributes.

See http://wiki.neurohack.com/transcendence/wiki/xml for what I've got so far.

I'm planning to reproduce the information from the elements document - as well as add details on elements used only in extensions and adventure extensions.

Format and content is open to debate.

[EDIT] P.S. A 'page move' plugin would make it easier to change our minds about namespace usage after the fact.
User avatar
alterecco
Fleet Officer
Fleet Officer
Posts: 1658
Joined: Wed Jan 14, 2009 3:08 am
Location: Previously enslaved by the Iocrym

OK, that looks great.

I have some issues with the content in the ItemType page though. It seems to be the page that George created some time ago, yet it has lost it's editing history. Instead of recreating the pages, would it not be simpler to rename them? Is that at all possible at present moment? I suppose you plan to move the entire <ItemType> document over to the new namespace, including the pages it links to?

Anyways, I'm liking what I am seeing :) Thanks for the time and effort you are putting into this!
User avatar
ptbptb
Militia Lieutenant
Militia Lieutenant
Posts: 143
Joined: Mon May 10, 2010 7:34 pm

alterecco wrote:Instead of recreating the pages, would it not be simpler to rename them? Is that at all possible at present moment?
Good point. Unfortunately I do not think it is possible with DokuWiki (at least not as a standard user).
I suppose you plan to move the entire <ItemType> document over to the new namespace, including the pages it links to?
The only pages it linked to that actually existed have been moved, or will not be moved (because they do not belong in the same namespace).
User avatar
alterecco
Fleet Officer
Fleet Officer
Posts: 1658
Joined: Wed Jan 14, 2009 3:08 am
Location: Previously enslaved by the Iocrym

ptbptb wrote:Good point. Unfortunately I do not think it is possible with DokuWiki (at least not as a standard user).
Hmm, you are probably right. Does the original page still exist? I will put it on the todo for wiki backend hacking then.
ptbptb wrote:The only pages it linked to that actually existed have been moved, or will not be moved (because they do not belong in the same namespace).
Alright. I suppose you know what you are doing :D (I did not look at it that much)
User avatar
ptbptb
Militia Lieutenant
Militia Lieutenant
Posts: 143
Joined: Mon May 10, 2010 7:34 pm

alterecco wrote:Hmm, you are probably right. Does the original page still exist? I will put it on the todo for wiki backend hacking then.
The history of the page still exists at the previous location. Just click 'old versions'.
User avatar
alterecco
Fleet Officer
Fleet Officer
Posts: 1658
Joined: Wed Jan 14, 2009 3:08 am
Location: Previously enslaved by the Iocrym

OK, cool. Do you have a link for the page? I never seem to be able to find it :oops:
User avatar
ptbptb
Militia Lieutenant
Militia Lieutenant
Posts: 143
Joined: Mon May 10, 2010 7:34 pm

alterecco wrote:OK, cool. Do you have a link for the page? I never seem to be able to find it :oops:
Here's the direct link to the history.
http://wiki.neurohack.com/transcendence ... =revisions

The bad(?) news is that the wiki history appears to have been almost entirely wiped. So there wasn't much lost in the first place. Maybe it was a space saving thing? I doubt it has anything to do with the 'page move'.

[EDIT] Looks like history before Oct 2009 is wiped.

http://wiki.neurohack.com/transcendence ... =revisions
Post Reply