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[jcheung]

been a lot of work done in the last couple months, keep it up all!

on a side note, please try to keep speculation (such as a ton of "i think" "he thinks" "supposedly" in one paragraph that screams "i need an adult") limited as much as possible in the wiki. if you don't know about something, keep the page simple and {{stub|text}} the page and/or add it to the todo list... and move on to a topic you are more familiar with.

[playerxyz]

jcheung,

referring to your post above, I can happily repeat what was discussed a number of times in the chat:

between the choice A) having no information at all, especially in cases where this information is not only missing in the wiki but where you find there are no sources of information available at all (say an item not listed in the CEDR) -AND- taking into consideration that players are in diverse help/faq related places explicitly advised in such cases to ask questions in the chat, choice B) collection of information aquired in the chat is defenitely preferable.

While myself preferring actual information to guessing and terms like "it seems", "it is assumed" also, that is sometimes the only thing you can do. Moving on and sticking to "topics that you are sure about" means that a certain item (for example) that has neither a wiki entry nor a CEDR entry nor anything else and that players were speculating for hours about would end up having still no wiki entry nor anything else: situation unchanged, next player wondering the same ends up in exactly the same situation as the player before him.

Somewhere the collection of information must start.

And sometimes, a collection of quoted assumptions can simply show how much is unknown and this way help focusing interested wiki contributors on improving that.

[pikolinianita]

A lot of Issues here, Playerxyz. Few general remarks first:

Moving on and sticking to "topics that you are sure about" means that a certain item (for example) that has neither a wiki entry nor a CEDR entry

If you don't know topic you won't write good article about it. So it is better to stick to topic you with it, know basics (at least). Other way, it is high chance your article would be useless at best, misleading at worst (I don't claim all your articles belongs are between useless and misleading). Sometimes it is better to leave article "empty", and add it to "todo list" here, on forum, or on wiki, than write a Extremely Short Stub.

While myself preferring actual information to guessing and terms like "it seems", "it is assumed" also, that is sometimes the only thing you can do.

Wiki has some unwritten rules. We try to keep entries to look like Encyclopedia. Words "I think", "He thinks" etc. don't fits to convention. Just try to use more formal language.

For Players not active on chat recently: Playerxyz asked "Where can I use Optical Core Memory?". Answer "It is High Tech Loot, so probably it is required to make some POD(s)" was claimed "too vague".

between the choice A) having no information at all, especially in cases where this information is not only missing in the wiki but where you find there are no sources of information available at all (say an item not listed in the CEDR) -AND- taking into consideration that players are in diverse help/faq related places explicitly advised in such cases to ask questions in the chat, choice B) collection of information aquired in the chat is defenitely preferable.

A lot of arguments were said, fron "you have item description" to "figure it by yourself". Let's leave it alone. I think that this game is different than many of games you've played. Here are plenty of different items (and resources), which have little use, if any (You can compare them to Real Life Screws, Resistors, Vegetables and such). When Coops introduce new features, new items, those are made from already existing "screws", unlike other games, where for each new item there are new "submodules" introduced. So, Many players knows what is used to make certain useful items, but it is hard to know all items that require Optical Core Memory (in RL, it is easy to find recipe for Cucumber Light (Cucumber, Lightbulb, Zinc srew, Copper Screw), but finding all recipes for items (ans Drinks!) with Cucumber is hard, unless you have good app. There is no app for CE, lol).

[playerxyz]

for players not recently active in chat and wiki, short sum-up of the situation:

- there is an item I find and have the (hopefully understandable) need to find out whether it's one of those you kick yourself after when you throw it away for peanuts or give to barter...

- wiki has no entry. wiki has absolutely no mention of it.

- CEDR has no entry.

- item not in any player shop (emporiums). nothing.

- I follow the suggestion given me on various help pages to simply ask in the chat.

- item is being discussed by a number of people. Some are sure it's used for a POD at least, probably also for other items. Then others say they checked the available blueprints and it's not the case. And I get the information that a reward center probably uses it.

- as the wiki has no mention of that item, I go ahead and make one, collecting the information available (i.e. assumptions of seasoned players), quoting and making it clear that while the first sources of information are empty with regards to this item, the last suggested resort returned exactly that. Nothing of that confirmed, but a basement for further research and verification.

- one player starts gathering confirmation: burns own fuel to get to the nearest reward center to check if it's really on the list. check.

- second player (pikolinianita) goes ahead and makes an own check of blueprints and bingo! in contrary to assumptions, there was an item found that uses our obscure item as an ingredient.

- next stage: the wiki item page catches attention of another player (jcheung) who's active on the wiki, too, gets him interested (obviously, I'd say) enough to making him want to work on resolving the confusion and to get the wiki page to a more presentable shape.

I don't know about you two, but I am happy about the outcome.

I can assure you, wikipedia rules in general are known to me. But as much as I would have preferred to have what's needed when starting the page, for reasons described above that could not be done: sources for that were missing. The alternative - the status-quo of a wiki that never heard of this item - was not an alternative.

[jcheung]

The alternative - the status-quo of a wiki that never heard of this item - was not an alternative.

you are bringing too much detail and attention to a single use HTxL... if you needed to ask that many sources about it, you were clearly in over your head and should have moved on to something you had more knowledge of.
or, you generate the page with the factual information that is known to you, like the gamequote, item type, item image, and tag it with {{stub|}}... while leaving the 'i don't know what this does, and neither does this person i asked here, nor does that person over there' elsewhere (the discussions tab, per se?)
in this way, the wiki 'hears about' it, but isn't flooded with confusing information. it took me reading it twice to realize it was not a new consumable item with some unknown function, and HTxL.

apologies if i come off wrong, it's great that you're so enthusiastic, but. you need to work with and compromise with people for some things.

Imagine this being a wiki entry...

Code: Select all

Safety Wire

The following information was mainly collected in by asking some random people on the street. Some details are entered here temporarily, as long as there is no confirmed information available. This item is thus far missing in the item database.

located in "Misc" section of my cargo pants.

Usage of this item seems to be widely obscure. It seems to be used on aircraft according to two people on the street, although none knew exactly for sure or which one. According to Bob, however the item is not used in aircraft construction (Quote: "I have gone through the part number database and found no entries"). One person suggested it's probably used also in building other items than air. The recycling center appears to accept this item. The recycling center information can be seen as confirmed: source is again Bob who took a trip there and checked the list of items that can be turned in, safety wire is on it according to him. 

when instead, it could be:

Code: Select all

Safety Wire

This article about safety wire is a stub. You can help by expanding it.
*Item descriptor, to include item type*
*image (maybe)*
This item has no known use at this time, suspected to be used in aircraft construction.
Safety Wire may also be turned into the recycling center.

and in case you're wondering, safety wire and the pndb are real things

[playerxyz]

if you needed to ask that many sources about it, you were clearly in over your head and should have moved on to something you had more knowledge of. ...

I think you still don't really understand. I made this entry _because_ I had no clue of it: I didn't have it _because_ the wiki had no entry about it, because there was no other source of information available (no CEDR entry) and _because_ even after following the advise given in this game to go to the chat the situation was relatively unchanged (result of this being exactly what you saw on the wiki, after all). _Because_ the advise new players are given ("go to the chat") does not always resolve the situation.

Leaving it "because it was over my head" would have changed nothing. And the situation (me and any searching player after me still having no clue what uses this item might have) was not a desirable one.

I did this as a newbie searching for information for this item.

I did this so the item has an entry that can be used as a foundation - for further work on it.

While talking about the item in the chat, I was invited as a contributor there (although I remarked right from the start that as a newbie my abilities to contribute much of value might be lacking). If you think this was wrong, please complain there.

I can only repeat I am happy about the outcome.

[jcheung]

i'm just going to steal words from this guy, corrected for spelling.

...
Wiki has some unwritten rules. We try to keep entries to look like Encyclopedia. Words "I think", "He thinks" etc. don't fits to convention. Just try to use more formal language.

...

...this game is different than many of games you've played. ... So, Many players knows what is used to make certain useful items, but it is hard to know all items that require Optical Core Memory (in RL, it is easy to find recipe for Cucumber Light (Cucumber, Lightbulb, Zinc screw, Copper Screw), but finding all recipes for items (ans Drinks!) with Cucumber is hard, unless you have good app. There is no app for CE, lol).

...not to mention the fact that we have people uploading blueprints anyways, so this item would have come to light through that.

no, it's not wrong to want to learn about things.
however, you need to do it in a way that doesn't make publicly viewed pages look like a mess. keeping it short and simple like the example i displayed for safety wire would suffice. you do new (or any) players no favors by running them in circles and saying "bob says this, josh and mike says that, they don't agree with each other and i have no way of knowing who is telling the truth".
learning how to compromise would also be a very useful skill.

this said, i think i'm done with this conversation as long as my willpower holds out.

[playerxyz]

Making those publicly viewed pages look even more like a mess by going with a bulldozer over people's contributions does not make a situation better.

You should realise that simply copypasted, redundant text is not a wiki contribution. lots of pages on the wiki are just that.

Is that this "lucidity" you dream of?

Then let me enlighten you that in that case you can perfectly make a private wiki just for your private enjoyment - the actual player of the game has nothing of it. When we search in the wiki for something, we do it after reading in-game text, we look for information about said item, location, you name it. Finding a page that simply presents that same texts, just this repetition and nothing more is finding blank, empty pages in terms of information.