GD: Dedicated Strategy Wiki?

For posting and requesting strategic gameplay tips on shmups!
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xybur
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GD: Dedicated Strategy Wiki?

Post by xybur »

Seeing as new releases have been rather plentiful, and many of these threads get longer and longer each day as new tidbits of info are entered (and earlier posts and strats become obsolete with the addition of new information), I wonder if anyone has toyed with the idea of taking the contents of all of these threads and compiled it into a big wiki that can be edited by anybody and, ultimately make it so that the most up to date info is always available and easily found under the topic of a game? Earlier posts in some of these threads contain out of date info. Sometimes things get added later that don't get updated on the front page, etc.

I'm talking a dedicated page for a game (and its variations/ports), information on achievements (if applicable) for that game and suggestions on how to earn them, and of course the addition of "how to play" the games based on the outlines presented in the excellent ST forum posts. My friend and I had to read (and translate) the manual to daifukkatsu in order how to "use" and to abuse the Rage meter, and I couldn't find info here that clearly explained it. Translations of manuals would be a welcome addition to the wiki, as well as side stuff like plot dissection and ending translations for example.

I'd be willing to copy (and credit original authors of course) as well as organize information contained here throughout posts to a wiki that has all of this info as a base, and the hope is the site will grow from there. I'd be all for organizing anything ketsui since it's my fave shmup, and I'm sure we have plenty of fans here for other stuff.

Do you think that'd be a relatively easy thing to at least start? Would people be willing to help with it? Has this been discussed before?
Last edited by xybur on Tue Mar 08, 2011 8:35 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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StarCreator
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Re: GD: Dedicated Strategy Wiki>

Post by StarCreator »

The problem with Wikis, IMO, is that most of the popular wiki software are spam magnets and you end up spending 50x more time just clearing spam than actually contributing content. I think having guides in the forum works well enough, though we're looking into ways to improve how we handle achievements...
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xybur
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Re: GD: Dedicated Strategy Wiki>

Post by xybur »

Well if spam and security is an issue, it would be as simple as requiring credentials to log in and more importantly edit. If people are willing to make accounts to log into this site, I don't see why it wouldn't be out of the question to do so for a wiki with the same updated info.

Mvc3 has a dedicated wiki and it just came out a few weeks ago. I think it gets enough visitors and people who care about it that it stays edited and up to date. Likewise, I know we have a large number of people who still actively participate here and might be willing to help as well.
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Re: GD: Dedicated Strategy Wiki>

Post by Icarus »

xybur wrote:… compiled it into a big wiki that can be edited by anybody and…
It is precisely this reason why I don't want any of my compiled guides uploaded or translated anywhere else, because it only takes one idiot to ruin a lot of hard work, and spread misinformation.
So, no. The current structure is fine.
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xybur
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Re: GD: Dedicated Strategy Wiki>

Post by xybur »

Well, it helps when you have multiple people working on these guides that do know what they're talking about. A structure would obviously have to be established, but if we're talking just compiling and putting things together in a logical place, one where we have stewards watching over particular articles (i.e. original authors) with relevant info added when it becomes apparent, I don't see why it couldn't be a good idea.

What we have now is varying qualities of strategy threads, some are kept up relatively well because they are current, others games aren't nearly as popular, so they don't get the same amount of love. On top of that, you've got lots of relevant info within threads that isn't put in the front pages of those topics. I think a wiki would nicely address that.

Reverting an article to a previous version is as easy as pressing a button with any competent wiki framework. The idea of having multiple hands on something is a function to self regulate and check topics to ensure that misinformation does not get spread. That's the idea of a functional wiki. It also allows those with translation skills to add to the articles in ways that original authors may not be able to (providing translations of manuals, etc that from time to time pop up on these forums in disparate places, which is the key word "disparate").

The only thing it would need then is support of people to get behind it.
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Re: GD: Dedicated Strategy Wiki>

Post by StarCreator »

xybur wrote:Well if spam and security is an issue, it would be as simple as requiring credentials to log in and more importantly edit. If people are willing to make accounts to log into this site, I don't see why it wouldn't be out of the question to do so for a wiki with the same updated info.
Unless you make registration closed to the general public, requiring logins does absolutely nothing to combat spam, especially if you use MediaWiki.

Also, you haven't really pointed out how a wiki would be that much different from keeping it to the forum - if a first post dearly needs to be updated, you can always flag nZero or some other mod to do the editing if the original poster is unavailable. I'm not sure if I'd be comfortable with having just anyone doing the editing - if the various tvtropes pages on shmup related material is any indication, the general public pretty much have no idea what they're talking about when it comes to this genre and a layer of fact-checking is an absolute necessity.
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Re: GD: Dedicated Strategy Wiki>

Post by Aliquantic »

I think this thread might interest you, but there hasn't really been a lot of interest apparently. There's also at least one Japanese STG wiki out here somewhere but I can't remember the URL, and even that one had fairly little content, most of it being ST style. The Touhou Wiki is the only one that comes to spring that has a fair amount of activity (the High Scores page in particular, thanks to moozoh), and even that one has a fairly narrow focus.

(I'm no expert on wiki security, but it is possible for bots to create their own accounts and bypass some captchas, so that matter isn't quite so trivial as simply disabling guest edits... it's not an impossible obstacle to overcome, of course, but you do need some extra security further down the road)
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xybur
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Re: GD: Dedicated Strategy Wiki>

Post by xybur »

StarCreator wrote:Also, you haven't really pointed out how a wiki would be that much different from keeping it to the forum - if a first post dearly needs to be updated, you can always flag nZero or some other mod to do the editing if the original poster is unavailable. I'm not sure if I'd be comfortable with having just anyone doing the editing - if the various tvtropes pages on shmup related material is any indication, the general public pretty much have no idea what they're talking about when it comes to this genre and a layer of fact-checking is an absolute necessity.
Well, from what I've got in my mind, ideally each page would include the following:

Title, Year of Release, what systems its on, basic synopsis of the game, etc.

translation of manuals scans or other supporting material (arcade marquee material). translation of "plot" and of various endings, which is severely lacking everywhere I've seen online unless you're a native speaker. explanations of all menus and what all menu items do. if there are unlocks, how to unlock them, etc.

Then how to "play the game" which covers its various modes (similar to what we've got here on the site, but more in depth based on actual translations of stuff found in reputable magazines, online, and actual written printed material). In home versions, there tend to be multiple modes, so description of mechanic tweaks, what gauges do and explicit direction of buttons, etc would be nice.

What's great is that alot of the posts here are actually written very competently and so using them as a base (with authors permission) seems like an excellent thing to do, it would just need a bit of sprucing up and modifying to make work on a wiki

Walkthroughs and strats where applicable. One-up locations also nice since I tend to see them from time to time. Hitbox diagrams would fit nicely here as well as any kind of gimmicks or tricks you can use (I've found a hitbox website with screen caps and hitbox images, that's the kind of stuff that'd work on a wiki).

Achievement lists could go here, as well as requirements for them, and if there are any known tricks to getting any of them, they could be elaborated upon here. Again, the achievement list on this site does an okay job at outlining them, but they often go for weeks without any further explanation or strats. I spent a few hours trying to find a video replay of futaris lamp video to get the "all blue lamps destroyed" achievement, and this would be a useful and easy place to link to it so others can do the same with little searching.

And then finally links to replays and such online, with explanations of what is actually being done and how to employ those strats in your game. People could (if they felt so moved) to record the uploaded replays on xbox live leaderboards for the arrange modes that didn't get any official replays for example. I can do this for a number of games, but I don't have access to anything online that isn't "region free" on my xbox.

The ultimate goal is to build a compendium for every popular game and also the less popular ones. Make it easy to find and read. Make it consistent between games so that one or two games don't get more love any other. Make them easy to read and easy to follow. Also, there'd be no "need" to flag a mod and wait, it could be done almost immediately, and then if the info is bogus, then you can revert to a point before it was edited. That's part of wiki management and I don't think it's completely out of the question for what wiki work entails.
Aliquantic wrote:I think this thread might interest you, but there hasn't really been a lot of interest apparently.
Thanks for the links. I'll see if I can't find that page you were mentioning. I mean, if its as simple as taking an already created wiki (in Japanese no less) and translating to English, we could go that route, but I feel that we have enough resources here on the site to start with that I could see looking at Jp sites just for specifics on games that maybe the general public isn't aware of.
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Re: GD: Dedicated Strategy Wiki>

Post by mjclark »

xybur wrote:The ultimate goal is to build a compendium for every popular game and also the less popular ones. Make it easy to find and read. Make it consistent between games so that one or two games don't get more love any other. Make them easy to read and easy to follow.
Encyclopaedia Shmupetica
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StarCreator
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Re: GD: Dedicated Strategy Wiki>

Post by StarCreator »

Every last thing you mentioned are things we can already do with the current format, minus the need to have people have one more piece of software to monitor for spam.

Besides the achievements, and we already have the ball rolling on something new for those.
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xybur
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Re: GD: Dedicated Strategy Wiki>

Post by xybur »

Yeah but they're not organized within each thread, or nearly as evenly done for every game. Hence a wiki. Part of the problem with this site is that the expectations for these things aren't defined up front. They sort of just come together (sometimes over years because of how little this stuff is consistently updated) for the games in question.

Just take a look at this forum: multiple threads for the same game, spread across multiple pages of threads, each handling little tiny specifics. Why not centralize these things?

Give people a "checklist" of things to include, and find people who are equally as excited to complete this stuff, and you have a better guide that everyone benefits from. I spend more time navigating threads (skipping over "thanks for this!" replies) looking for specifics than I do playing games sometimes because in a thread 90 pages deep, I'm looking for a specific post I happened to stumble across during some previous browsing period. I want to cut that time down.

I'd just like something centralized, easily navigable, and consistently complete for every game. If there's some better format than a wiki for this then yeah, I'm for it.
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Re: GD: Dedicated Strategy Wiki?

Post by xybur »

http://www.shmups.com/beepreying/old/st ... index.html

This would be a great place to start a DDP wiki, taking this info and adjusting as necessary and also updating it (missing photos replaced, more up to date info added etc). with strats and info on stage six as well as either of the loops (prometheus could then review it and adjust the information for validity and accuracy for example. That's an example of a resource that hasn't been touched in a while that could use a bit of updating and an easy way to allow that would be through wiki.
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xybur
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Re: GD: Dedicated Strategy Wiki?

Post by xybur »

No dice eh?
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Kitaru
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Re: GD: Dedicated Strategy Wiki?

Post by Kitaru »

I also like the idea of a strategy wiki, but it could just be that I'm used to how Tetris Concept does things.
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Re: GD: Dedicated Strategy Wiki?

Post by Sumez »

I'm totally in favor of this idea.
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xybur
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Re: GD: Dedicated Strategy Wiki?

Post by xybur »

Thanks to a good buddy of mine, I was able to get the translated text to the ending of Ketsui. This is the kind of stuff I'd be wanting to put in a wiki. To see the fruits of his labor, check this out:

http://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.ph ... 84#p669184

I appreciate his help and I just want to show I am serious about this. Obviously, in the wiki I'd elaborate and explain the story in detail as well as any other notable story elements. And of course, the more important stuff would be explained and covered, strats and the like.
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Re: GD: Dedicated Strategy Wiki?

Post by mjclark »

xybur wrote: I just want to show I am serious about this. Obviously, in the wiki I'd elaborate and explain the story in detail as well as any other notable story elements. And of course, the more important stuff would be explained and covered, strats and the like.
In my experience with various enterprises I'd humbly suggest that the best way to get this project off the ground is to actually start it youreself and get something up that others can read, however patchy it might be.
People are generally much keener to jump onboard a project that has already started than they are to give their commitment to starting something themselves.
The idea of a strategy wiki as you've proposed sounds like a great idea as a supplement/alternative (but not replacement) to the Strategy Board here. At worst it can do no harm and at best it could turn into an authorative reference source. Either way, if you are serious about it then building it will be satisfying and maybe even FUN :D
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Re: GD: Dedicated Strategy Wiki?

Post by xybur »

Absolutely, I'm just garnering interest here since I think the people most likely to benefit from something of this scope would be here.

I'm already talking to a couple of friends to get a mediawiki started, and figuring out hosting etc. I may pay for it out of pocket if I can't find a good free alternative.

I'll be back, here's hoping in about 2-3 weeks with the basic groundwork laid and a solicitation for people to create pages and add articles to the site. I'll have general rules up somewhere on the site also to explain what would be expected of every article and general formatting.

I'll state up front that the intention of the wiki is NOT to take over the utility of this site (or any other site). Wikis are not great for discussion. Forums will always be better. The goal is to be a compendium of easy to find information so you don't spend hours (like I have) scouring the net for specific info that should be easy to find, despite most of us not actually being Japanese.

For the time being, I'd appreciate help in the form of:

Links to japanese websites with info on our favorite games would be highly appreciated. (A friend of mine linked me to an "ending text" website in japanese, which made translating ketsui's ending a breeze).

Also, links to official games with info on them would be useful as well.
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Re: GD: Dedicated Strategy Wiki?

Post by mjclark »

xybur wrote: I'll be back, here's hoping in about 2-3 weeks with the basic groundwork laid and a solicitation for people to create pages and add articles to the site. I'll have general rules up somewhere on the site also to explain what would be expected of every article and general formatting.
Sounds great! :D
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Re: GD: Dedicated Strategy Wiki?

Post by xybur »

http://magus.main.jp/cgi/wiki/pukiwiki.php

Just posting this for my future reference.
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Re: GD: Dedicated Strategy Wiki?

Post by DJ Incompetent »

@xybur

You can start whatever pages on games you want at shmupswiki.com
You can just add strategy on whatever game you like. Just don't create a new page just for strategy on something. If you have info on a game, just add it all to that game's existing page. If no page exists for the game you have info on, go ahead and start one.

One millennia, when I get my computer back up to speed after the great crash of 2009 and figure out all this Windows 7 business, I'm supposed to organize whatever data is out there along with a listing of every STG we can collectively think of. Everything from strategy, story, type, whatever would have a place in the template for every game listing.

Another way to contribute if you're serious is try to rerail this discussion of what the template of every game should include and how to define all our terms we throw around for proper game tagging so we could run searches in the distant future.
http://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=29029 Besides getting stuck on "what's the point of a wiki" which I think ended here http://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=28553 I think we were trying to figure out how to define difficulty styles better so we'd have a standard for labeling games 'bullet-hell', 'methodical', etc.

Shit-gots-complicated, y'all
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Re: GD: Dedicated Strategy Wiki?

Post by xybur »

Oh good, that'll work. Yeah it needs some work, I wasn't sure if there was already a wiki up. The place will need some work, but it's definitely a start.

I'm up for editing an already established page, saves me alot of the up front setting up and cost behind it. The other wiki pages linked to earlier in this thread didn't convince me (I think it was the touhou site), but this is better organized I think and has the potential of what we want as well as being something all of us are familiar with.
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Re: GD: Dedicated Strategy Wiki?

Post by DJ Incompetent »

Yes, potential is definitely the word.

Build what you can. Feel free to experiment. The goal in its current state is to make things that can (or convincingly should) become part of the template format for every game page. http://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.ph ... 08#p524908

Oh, and if you complete anything significant, keep a copy of your code/work backed up somewhere in case of bot attack.
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Re: GD: Dedicated Strategy Wiki?

Post by xybur »

Well, since it's already established, it would be foolish to not use it. At best, it will allow me to put something up now, and if I need to transfer it over to a different wiki in the future, it should be easy enough to do.

I can do the work up front and then save it for myself. Thanks for the heads up. A friend of mine who runs his own wiki (well, I might add) is willing to clean up, add a recaptcha, and upgrade the software if you'd let him. He'd need sysop access obviously, but yeah.

Either way, I'll start updating the ketsui page for starters during this week and I'll follow my own loose idea based on the discussion on the page you linked, and go from there.
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Re: GD: Dedicated Strategy Wiki?

Post by xybur »

Looking around there seems to be a number of dedicated wikis devoted to shmups (well, at least 3 general ones in english, a number in japanese, and some wikis devoted to specific games like darius and gradius that have more articles compared to even the general shmup wikis)

There doesn't seem to be a need to reinvent the wheel and start a new wiki, but there still is a need to get people working on the existing pages and fill them out. I'll do what I can but I guess at this point it's asking for people to help edit articles for the greater good.
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Re: GD: Dedicated Strategy Wiki?

Post by DJ Incompetent »

Where are the 3 general ones in english?
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xybur
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Re: GD: Dedicated Strategy Wiki?

Post by xybur »

http://shmup.wikia.com/wiki/Shoot_Em_Up
http://tig.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Shmups
http://shmupswiki.com/index.php5?title=Main_Page
http://darius.wikia.com
http://gradius.wikia.com

Those are the ones I've found so far.

I think I'm sticking with shmupswiki since it's not wikia and its related to this board.

I have a friend on board who is a otomedius fanatic. He is going to work on everything otomedius on the shmups.wikia page. He posts around here too, he can speak up if he wants (hint, hint)
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Re: GD: Dedicated Strategy Wiki?

Post by PROMETHEUS »

I support this idea.
Scores, replays, videos || I have written a guide about getting good at shmups. Check it out !
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xybur
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Re: GD: Dedicated Strategy Wiki?

Post by xybur »

That means alot to me, thanks :)
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Re: GD: Dedicated Strategy Wiki?

Post by xybur »

In fact prometheus, would you like to do the ddp sections of the wiki? I know you have written so much already with your guide, but it would be a huge help to have your working on that particular portion since you know so much about it.

If anything, permission to quote what you already have written would be easy enough and I can handle that at a later date.

I'm going to do most of my editing god willing this weekend. I'll post about it here when I update stuff.
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