Talk:Migration

Feel free to bring up any ideas for how to best migrate stuff from the old wiki here.

Who's doing what

I'm going through the targeting method pages and subpages right now. I'm still on the simple targeters right now. Some of those pages are really messy. =) --Voidious 23:06, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm playing around with the main page. I'm hoping to make it look better than the old wiki's by incorporating some of the more advanced wiki code available in MediaWiki. (Translation: I'm playing with code from Wikipedia's homepage in the Sandbox.) -- AaronR 23:29, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Hey, I really like the version you have going on in the Sandbox! --Voidious 00:39, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. Any ideas for what the "... Whatever ..." section could be? What about the categories at the top? -- AaronR 00:57, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

I just want to point out how useful the special pages are. For the fastest migration, everyone should start patrolling Orphaned pages, Uncategorized pages, Wanted categories, and particularly Wanted pages. --AaronR 05:57, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

I plan to work on radar page and perhaps put a little work into robocode mathematics. --Chase-san 06:23, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm doing Melee and then Movement-related stuff. (Btw, there are 3740 pages on the wiki, removing 'potential empty pages' it can be rounded down to 3,700 pages. And we only have 77 articles :) -- Starrynte 06:11, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Right now I'm working on a client-side wiki-bot written in Java that can do things like remove double redirects, etc. I'm using the Java Wiki Bot Framework to interact with the wiki. Since it's my first attempt at a bot, you may see a lot of changes to the Sandbox in the near future. =) --AaronR 06:34, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Judging from the recent changes log, I got my bot working correctly. =) At present all it does is remove double redirects, but it has a nice pluggable interface and is fully expandable. I'm not using the Java Wiki Bot Framework anymore - it's a server-side framework, and I'm hoping to have the bot run as a client, a bit like the RoboRumble clients. --AaronR 07:34, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Cool! Let me know if there's anything I can do to assist you, as it seems like a very useful tool to have around. --Voidious 00:53, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. As soon as you can get the file uploads working, I'll post a JAR of it with source. Because of the long weekend, I should have plenty of time for Robocode over the next several days. --AaronR 01:26, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

Capitalization of page titles when linking

Ok, I've got a style question. If I'm linking to the Bearing Offset page, should I capitalize it? Should it be like, "A Bearing Offset gives you a blah blah", or "A bearing offset gives you a blah blah".. ? They each have their merits, in my mind, but I kind of lean towards the latter for anything that isn't obviously a proper name that we basically made up (like "GuessFactor" or "WaveSurfing"). Thoughts? --Voidious 06:04, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

MediaWiki will automatically ignore the capitalization of the first letter of a pagelink. I say we use lowercase for everything except the "made-up words", and create redirects from lowercase to uppercase for any 2+ word page titles. ("Bearing offset" should redirect to "Bearing Offset", but "bearing Offset" is automatically redirected to "Bearing Offset" by the wiki software.) This is pretty much what they do at Wikipedia. I also think WaveSurfing should be Wave Surfing. --AaronR 06:19, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Cool, sounds like a plan. I'm all for following what Wikipedia does. And I'm fine with "Wave Surfing", but I suspect we'll forever see it in both forms, anyway... --Voidious 06:21, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Robots

If at all possible use the new robot infobox template when shifting over robots. They look nifty after all, and thus we can change the layout without having to go through and update every single page... --Chase-san 14:40, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

I think the infobox looks really sleak, but I wonder what it leaves to actually fill out the rest of the page. I guess if all the fields are optional, authors can decide which go in the box and which make up the main page content? --Voidious 16:56, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

I removed the "White Whales", "Inspired By", and "Inspired" options from the infobox. Those three items seem to me to work better as page content. --AaronR 18:31, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

They didn't have to use those fields ya know. :P --Chase-san 18:35, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

The infobox seems quite nice, it is clear but complete and easy to comprehend. If there is something noteworthy about a bot (and usually there is ;-) ), it can be added below it (I think, I am not familiar (yet) with this kind of wiki) --GrubbmGait 23:01, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

I added this discussion to the current events listing - maybe we'll get some more opinions. --AaronR 18:43, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Will uploading be allowed, if not I should remove the image part of the Template, as it can only use images thata re stored on the wiki. --Chase-san 19:33, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Logo

http://chase.tfsnewworld.com/images/RoboWiki2.png

I got bored and Photoshopped up a newer version of the logo, I doupt people will agree to change it though, but it was fun to make. I obviously used the original as a basis. --Chase-san 21:51, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Pages that are discussions

Ok, I've reached a page that I'm unsure how to migrate. For ABCs Linked List Challenge, I went and gave it its own page and put it under Category:Discussions, which seemed like a reasonable setup. For FuzzyLogicTargeting, it doesn't make as much sense to me. One option is to make a Fuzzy Logic Targeting page, make it a stub, and add the page content's to the talk page, but that doesn't quite seem right - there is no such thing as Fuzzy Logic Targeting, so how could it ever get fleshed out? I could just transfer the whole contents and put it under Discussions like with ABCs Linked List Challenge; I guess this option works, but it still just feels a little off. Anybody got any suggestions? --Voidious 16:19, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

It was inevitable that there would be articles that just aren't worth moving. I realize by doing so we lose a little information from the old wiki, but in this case I just don't think it really should be moved. Unless the conversation had something influentual in it, I think it should be left alone aswell. --Chase-san 16:22, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Articles needing revision

Should we make a category for these, pages that we're just mostly copy and pasted from the old wiki, would obviously need revision to shake loose coversation and make them more informative, perferrably by someone knowledgable in the subject. Generally, I think each page should be written in a "for dummies" methodoligy where possible (things such as neural targeting will almost never be able to be put into a "for dummies" contex). In such as guessfactor targeting it is written out in such a way that someone realatively new to java programming can pick up, ergo generally lacking in technical jargan(unless referenced to the jargans meaning) and in plain english.

People such as I need things put in the simplist way to understand, as I am learning disabled so understanding psudoism's isn't exactly easy. (Just ask Voidious, who I worked with considerabily in an attempt to get my very first traditional gf gun working. Some things I just litterally needed spelled out.

Chase-san 16:30, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Well, I am trying to revise pages as I move them over, but if you move something and just don't know how to revise it, I think this is a fine solution. I think just marking it a "stub" or putting a note on the Talk page are other good options (either instead of or in addition to a "needs revision" list). --Voidious 16:41, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Template:Stub should used for articles that are too short. I believe Wikipedia has a generic "cleanup" template also. --AaronR 17:11, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

File and image uploads

Will these be enabled in the future? I can see some definite utility in allowing uploads: the challenge reference bots, the screenshots for The2000Club and The2100Club, illustrations for the tutorials... --AaronR 17:03, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I will enable uploads today or tomorrow. Yesterday, I looked into how to do it, checked out what kind of anti-abuse measures MediaWiki has in place, and talked to David to make sure he's cool with it. It should be no problem. --Voidious 18:13, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Will we be able to upload our robots to the wiki? --KID 00:29, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

Well, David is working on a replacement bot repository, you'll be able to upload your bots there. If you need to upload your bot somewhere before then, feel free to e-mail me your bot (my handle at gmail) and I'll host it for you. --Voidious 00:33, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

Are you still on vacation, Voidious? "I will enable uploads today or tomorrow" doesn't seem to have happened... --AaronR 00:28, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

No, sorry for the wait - image uploads are enabled now. None of the cool stuff like auto-thumbnailing is setup at the moment, but maybe we can set that up down the road. --Voidious 01:56, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Great, thanks! --AaronR 02:24, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

When to move to RoboWiki.net

At what point in this migration should we move this wiki to RoboWiki.net (and the old one to a subdomain, perhaps)? Obviously the migration is going to take a long time before it's "finished". The RoboRumble participants pages work fine in the new wiki format. Any other major issues to resolve before we can "move"? --Voidious 15:03, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

I still think we have a few too many redlinks for this to be considered "acceptable" as the new wiki. Just look at the Main Page, half of the links are missing (including RoboRumble!). Furthermore, the site is even less inviting to newcomers than before, since almost any link followed will dead-end them rather quickly. My opinion is that a lot more of the site needs to be finished before we can move over to the new wiki. Of course, at the rate everyone is contributing, that should only take about a few days. =) --AaronR 15:52, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

Signature

Right, I almost forgot in MediaWiki you sign with four tildes :) But then, how do you edit your signature? I didn't see it anyware in "my preferences" Starrynte 20:02, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

I was wondering that too. At Wikipedia, everyone has flashy multi-colored signatures ... except for me. --AaronR 07:00, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Aha! You have to use the "Nickname" field with the "Raw signatures" box checked. See, look at my signature now. I had to do a bit of searching through Wikipedia's help pages to figure that out. --AaronR 08:09, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Progress

Woohoo! Largely thanks to Fnl's recent updates for the Robocode pages, we are now up over 100 articles on the new wiki. I have been making good progress on the Targeting pages, too. There are nearly 4,000 pages on the old wiki, but I'd guess a ratio of 2:1 on the old wiki vs new wiki, because the new wiki doesn't count user pages or talk pages in that "article count", plus we are condensing some things over here. Keep up the good work, dudes! =) --Voidious 19:50, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

I'd call it more like a 3:1 ratio. Actually, according to the Statistics page, it's a 340:113 ratio. Thanks to user pages, talk pages, redirects, and categories, a huge percentage of the old wiki's "articles" don't actually count as articles under the new system - which is a good thing, because that means we're close to 1/10th of the way done! And remember, we don't have to move everything. --AaronR 21:33, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Wow. Last time I looked at the main page it didn't look nearly as good as it does now. I didn't realize that, I thought it was ... ok. But now it's really sharp! --Simonton 03:02, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Bots using <this concept>

A lot of pages on the old wiki include a section of "bots using <this concept>". Most of them are painfully out of date, so I'm not sure they're of much use. Should we come up with some standard way of doing this? For instance, we could have a (potentially VERY long) section at the end of the topic page, or a subpage like "Topic/Bots Using". Or maybe it's not worth doing this at all because it will never be kept up to date - using a "What links here" or an advanced search might always be a better idea, anyway. --Voidious 20:16, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

As you say, these sections are always out of date. I would just use "What links here". Maybe, for some of the really broad strategies (Wave Surfing, Random Movement, GuessFactor Targeting, Pattern Matching, and Dynamic Clustering are the only ones I can think of), we could have subcategories of Category:Bots. --AaronR 20:48, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

This type of wiki indeed has more powerfull (and automatically up-to-date) features for this. Rambots is the only category I can think of that is not hopelessly out of date, so I think it is not necessary. --GrubbmGait 23:22, 30 November 2007 (UTC)