Archiving some forum sections and merging the two wikis into one

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Archiving some forum sections and merging the two wikis into one

by Zughy » Post

These are a couple of ideas that has come up in these days whilst chatting on the Luanti Matrix space.

The first one is about the forums. More precisely, a couple of members of the staff (rubenwardy and I) would like to see a few sections archived (EDIT: me more than rubenwardy):
1. Mods
2. Games
3. Texture packs

This because CDB has took the place of these sections and basically no one is using it anymore. The WIP/non-WIP sections are particularly problematic, as, to quote another staff member (wsor4035), the moving topic itself is a joke. As a modder who had started before CDB was really a thing, I can confirm. Determining a "WIP" status is also no easy task. Having people doing such maintenance activity is a waste of their time, and if we consider that CDB already takes care of it, such sections are pretty much obsolete. Even if the "Threads" CDB function is not used a lot, it can cover the discussion part, which is the only feature that might still have sense in here.

To avoid seeing all the previous discussions disappear, an "Archive" section can be added, where to put the aforementioned sections. Users won't be able to interact with archived topics, so it'll be read only.

Bonus: "Discussions in other languages" could become a simple section where every language has just one topic. The most active language is German, and it's not *that* active: https://forum.luanti.org/viewforum.php? ... bc379f08f0. On the contrary, languages like Czech have been seeing basically zero activity for years.

--

The second idea is about having one wiki instead of two. A part of https://wiki.luanti.org/ is basically a remnant of what Minetest Game used to be. For instance, a section like "Crafting" doesn't make sense anymore, as some games don't even feature an inventory. In general, we seem to be very good at scattering info around, and a good chunk of the info available in the normal wiki is also present in more maintained places like the Modding Book and the website (Nodes, Items, where to find us etc.). Some others make more sense if put in other places, like the FAQ page that sounds more like a website thing. My proposal is to shrink the wiki into what's actually useful in there and merge it with the dev one. Basically, less things to maintain for us.

What do you think about it?
Last edited by Zughy on Mon Oct 28, 2024 23:03, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Archiving some forum sections and merging the two wikis into one

by Desour » Post

Zughy wrote:
Sun Oct 27, 2024 17:56
The first one is about the forums. More precisely, a couple of members of the staff (rubenwardy and I) would like to see a few sections archived:
1. Mods
2. Games
3. Texture packs
Big -1 on archiving these.
It's good having more ways to receive feedback.
And I find the communication threads on cdb not usable. I can't even find all threads that I interacted with. It's not a suitable replacement.

+1 on merging Release and WIP though.
Zughy wrote:
Sun Oct 27, 2024 17:56
Bonus: "Discussions in other languages" could become a simple section where every language has just one topic.
What would be the benefit of only having one topic per language?


Don't make the forums smaller and less usable for no reason! They are already not used enough, don't make it worse!
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Re: Archiving some forum sections and merging the two wikis into one

by fgaz » Post

Zughy wrote:
Sun Oct 27, 2024 17:56
The first one is about the forums. More precisely, a couple of members of the staff (rubenwardy and I) would like to see a few sections archived:
1. Mods
2. Games
3. Texture packs
Weak -1. I agree with Desour. There are many ways a forum thread can be useful. For example it can be an interactive devlog. Just look at this! It's great! CDB is still missing some features to match the forums (images, spoilers, DMs, browsing features), and I'm not sure it'd be the right place for all that.
Zughy wrote:
Sun Oct 27, 2024 17:56
The WIP/non-WIP sections are particularly problematic, as, to quote another staff member (wsor4035), the moving topic itself is a joke. As a modder who had started before CDB was really a thing, I can confirm. Determining a "WIP" status is also no easy task.
+1 on merging release and wip. The separation never made sense to me.
Zughy wrote:
Sun Oct 27, 2024 17:56
The second idea is about having one wiki instead of two. A part of https://wiki.luanti.org/ is basically a remnant of what Minetest Game used to be. For instance, a section like "Crafting" doesn't make sense anymore, as some games don't even feature an inventory. In general, we seem to be very good at scattering info around, and a good chunk of the info available in the normal wiki is also present in more maintained places like the Modding Book and the website (Nodes, Items, where to find us etc.). Some others make more sense if put in other places, like the FAQ page that sounds more like a website thing. My proposal is to shrink the wiki into what's actually useful in there and merge it with the dev one. Basically, less things to maintain for us.
+1 on merging. We can have namespaces or categories if necessary anyway, and I'd finally be able to edit dev pages.

I think it doesn't make sense to give mtg-specific content a special treatment. So I'd like for one of these to happen:
  1. Remove mtg-related wiki pages.
  2. Remove the rule that disallows game/mod-specific pages and enforce a namespace/category policy.
The second one is appealing. Some mod authors publish their manuals in dedicated websites (requires more work), others have it in git (may be difficult to browser for a regular user). Wiki pages are easy to create, browse, and collaborate on. Sure, there is going to be a lot of outdated info. As long as it's acknowledged I don't think it's a problem.

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Re: Archiving some forum sections and merging the two wikis into one

by mark-wiemer » Post

I'm new here, and curious: what are the two different wikis?
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Re: Archiving some forum sections and merging the two wikis into one

by rubenwardy » Post

My position is that the mod/game/txp forum sections should be reduced in complexity - there's no need for the topic moving process or so many subforums. So perhaps one topic per content type and a topic for game/mod development discussion. I don't support archiving package threads completely, they're still useful for discussion
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Re: Archiving some forum sections and merging the two wikis into one

by Zughy » Post

mark-wiemer wrote:
Sun Oct 27, 2024 23:04
I'm new here, and curious: what are the two different wikis?
Hey there, welcome :D

Dev: https://dev.minetest.net/Main_Page
Normal: https://wiki.luanti.org/

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Re: Archiving some forum sections and merging the two wikis into one

by LMD » Post

Get rid of WIP sections (merge them into "release" ones): +1 (why didn't we do this earlier, would've saved quite some hassle :P); but let's keep forum topics for content for now, since ContentDB isn't (and probably shouldn't be?) a perfect replacement and we want to encourage folks to keep discussions here rather than spreading them around a variety of platforms.

(As for the wikis, I don't really care what happens to the non-dev one, and frankly I would like it if the dev one was unwikified, but I don't feel strongly about this.)
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Re: Archiving some forum sections and merging the two wikis into one

by Blockhead » Post

Forum
+1 to merging WIP and Releases, not because I don't like it in principle, but since there's no faith in the WIP/release sections any more, and no requests coming in (despite that I could promptly respond to them). ContentDB elucidates the lifecycle much better, and most content ends up there first and here second.

I don't think Old Mods needs to be merged. The stuff in there has no business mixing with stuff that still works. It's okay "Old" just means a cutoff date.

-1 to ever archiving the content sections entirely. Some people, for whatever reasons, can't or won't use ContentDB, and this is a decent secondary platform (of course, the situation may be vice versa, and that's okay).

Zughy, we already discussed this on Matrix: The current state of the ContentDB threads system is not an adequate replacement for the forums. There are no attachments, no DMs, no spoilers, and everything else fgaz points out above.

In relation to merging the Language sections, I have no idea what you're thinking. The strength of forums is organising things in threads. People don't want to post to an unsorted sequential discussion just because they're posting in a language other than English. The only problem with the minor language sections is whether they can be effectively moderated, by native speakers or by (if we deem it adequate), machine translation. That there are two dozen sections that barely see any posts is not something we neurotically need to clean up, it seems driven by an obsession to make everything look up to date and revamp stuff. Please focus your enthusiasm for forward progress in places that are uncontentiously so.

Wikis
MTG should be namespaced. As to others adding their own content wiki-pages, it's all a bit moot when the wiki too often behaves like a bear coming out of hibernation to serve you pages.
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Re: Archiving some forum sections and merging the two wikis into one

by debiankaios » Post

Zughy wrote:
Sun Oct 27, 2024 17:56

This because CDB has took the place of these sections and basically no one is using it anymore. The WIP/non-WIP sections are particularly problematic, as, to quote another staff member (wsor4035), the moving topic itself is a joke. As a modder who had started before CDB was really a thing, I can confirm. Determining a "WIP" status is also no easy task. Having people doing such maintenance activity is a waste of their time, and if we consider that CDB already takes care of it, such sections are pretty much obsolete. Even if the "Threads" CDB function is not used a lot, it can cover the discussion part, which is the only feature that might still have sense in here.
+1 for merging WIP and Releases. When i posted my first mod i posted it in client side modding because i couldn't post anything in mod-releases and didn't know what's the meaning for WIP.

-1 for archiving the forums. They are still used as mentioned already and there are users which use forums first. But it's right my fried wanted to release a texture pack and he didn't understand the forums, it was much more simple to use contentdb. But for general informations i like the forums.
Zughy wrote:
Sun Oct 27, 2024 17:56
Bonus: "Discussions in other languages" could become a simple section where every language has just one topic. The most active language is German, and it's not *that* active: https://forum.luanti.org/viewforum.php? ... bc379f08f0. On the contrary, languages like Czech have been seeing basically zero activity for years.
-1 for merging all languages. Im am one of theese german forums users and i am happy we have a own forum. When i began minetest my english wasn't good enough to communicate with this. I needed the german forum to ask gerneral and modding questions (maybe i had abandoned modding without it). When this would be a forum which is merged no new people would know theese are different language and every different language than ones own would annoy in reading the newest own language post.
Zughy wrote:
Sun Oct 27, 2024 17:56
The second idea is about having one wiki instead of two. A part of https://wiki.luanti.org/ is basically a remnant of what Minetest Game used to be. For instance, a section like "Crafting" doesn't make sense anymore, as some games don't even feature an inventory. In general, we seem to be very good at scattering info around, and a good chunk of the info available in the normal wiki is also present in more maintained places like the Modding Book and the website (Nodes, Items, where to find us etc.). Some others make more sense if put in other places, like the FAQ page that sounds more like a website thing. My proposal is to shrink the wiki into what's actually useful in there and merge it with the dev one. Basically, less things to maintain for us.
+1 I am supporting fgaz proposings and was convinced.

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Re: Archiving some forum sections and merging the two wikis into one

by cx384 » Post

I strongly disagree with archiving those sections. Others already wrote enough, so I don't think I need to go in detail.

If I remember correctly, when I joined the forum more than 10 years ago, there was not even a separate WIP mod section. To me, the distinction was never very useful, and it was a pain to wait for my mods to get moved to the released section, at some point I didn't bother anymore to ask for a transfer. So I'm fine if they get merged.

I don't see a reason why the "Discussions in other languages" section should be changed, even if it is not very active.

Merging the wikis is probably fine, it doesn't matter much to me.
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Re: Archiving some forum sections and merging the two wikis into one

by Zughy » Post

A lot of answers, nice :D

I do agree that Threads on CDB are not there yet, but as a modder I also know I don't want to publish and update my content both on CDB and in here, as it takes twice the time. Personally, in these years I've never looked for any type of content in the forums, and those few times I did open it for content it was because of a CDB search. Anyway, I understand I'm the minority, so let's move on.

About languages: out of 21 sections, 10 have seen no new answers in 2024. The idea is nice, but heh.. not used a lot? Turkish is the worst section, with the last message being from 9 years ago. But again, I don't want to start a fight, it was just an extra, so let's ignore that I guess.

WIP/non-WIP merge when? :D
Also the wiki

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Re: Archiving some forum sections and merging the two wikis into one

by Bastrabun » Post

tl/dr

0. Fix forum and wiki performance for reals, there is no point doing anything else before that happens
1. Do not archive the old threads, but get rid of manual involvement like topic moving
2. Please merge user wiki and dev wiki into a new one, by manually selecting non-outdated information

wall of text:

Forum and wiki represent the project. If they don't work, are poorly maintained or require additional steps, I can't send the players of my server here or to the wiki in good conscience, although people keep asking whether there's an official forum and a wiki. Players expect that nowadays and I cannot understand why in the year 2024 we are unable to have usuable ones.

Remove all manual processes like topic move requests or wiki account, but don't merge languages and don't archive mods/games/... Having language subforums doesn't cost us anything but helps non-english speakers. In a perfect world there'd be OAuth2 and federation and only one place to keep the data, but I don't see that happening anytime soon. Some 0.4.x people still exclusively use the forum, not CDB. Let users of the mod forum decide with a [WIP] label what their maintenance status is, demand use the same labels CDB does.

Merge the wiki, allow making accounts (or again wishful thinking: Allow OAuth2 maybe from CDB), throw away all manual stuff and decide on a topic structure first, then pull in non-outdated content from the old ones. Have as much user-generatable content in there as possible: Games, mods, servers, cool projects, ...
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Re: Archiving some forum sections and merging the two wikis into one

by Blockhead » Post

Blockhead wrote:
Mon Oct 28, 2024 02:55
Forum
+1 to merging WIP and Releases, not because I don't like it in principle, but since there's no faith in the WIP/release sections any more, and no requests coming in (despite that I could promptly respond to them). ContentDB elucidates the lifecycle much better, and most content ends up there first and here second.
Update: A move request was actually made for the first time in ages, but the author hadn't filled out the licence and dependencies properly. This demonstrates how much easier ContentDB makes it to gather the right info. phpBB is just freeform text. I edited the post to add the info rather than waste even more time requesting an edit.

Also, here's a link to the prior discussion on Matrix before Zughy made the forum post. I'd also like to remind everyone how Discord would never allow a publicly readable link to a static page like that. It even shows the message edit history.
Zughy wrote:
Mon Oct 28, 2024 23:20
I do agree that Threads on CDB are not there yet, but as a modder I also know I don't want to publish and update my content both on CDB and in here, as it takes twice the time.
You already saw it, but in that discussion, phpBB cross-posting was mentioned. Unfortunately, phpBB has no API. Without such a solution, I understand why you wouldn't take the time. In my own experience of posting to both, the major pain is BBCode rather than Markdown. If I could just take the description off ContentDB and copy & paste it straight into the forums, it'd be easy. I either have to use a conversion tool like pandoc or hand-editing. There's no way anyone wants to do the busywork of updating both for all updates (but some will put up with it, not many, but some).

In principle, I still like the idea I've had before: some kind of software that takes your description file in your git repository, puts it into .cdb.json as markdown for you, and updates your post on the forums as well after using pandoc to convert it to BBCode. It could even potentially be automated with CI/CD tools (GitHub actions etc.). But if it needs to basically manage a browser session on an unstable phpBB interface, I can see why nobody's built it before. For one, it would need proper secrets management to fetch your phpBB password from somewhere without checking it into git - no token systems like OAuth are available to these forums (I think).
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Re: Archiving some forum sections and merging the two wikis into one

by Linuxdirk » Post

Why not make a clean cut and archive the forums and spin up an own Lemmy instance?

This might be the only real opportunity based on a non-arbitrary situation (i.e. the name change and making Luanti an engine-first project).

The benefits would be a more modern UX, a more modern codebase with more modern security and anti-spam measurements, federation, and a strong and tested ISO certified underlying communication and information exchange protocol to hook into with other services.

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Re: Archiving some forum sections and merging the two wikis into one

by freshreplicant » Post

I don't see any issues merging the WIP/non-WIP mod sections or streamlining the wiki.

I wouldn't be in favour of having ContentDB or Lemmy or anything else replace the forums entirely (though having them available is great). The latter because I like the self-contained feel of a forum, it feels more like using the internet in the 'old days', where you go to one site for one purpose, not have some Luanti stuff pop up inside of an endless scroll of other content (even if its FOSS and federated).

I'm not sure how I like the idea of ContentDB being the only place to discuss games, mods and texture packs. As some pointed out, ContentDB doesn't have some of the functionality of the forums. I also generally never log into ContentDB, except the very rare times where I have time to leave a review, so I'd miss pretty much all the threads on games and mods.

Being able to log into a single site, have a quick browse and catch up with the community (with one unified user interface) is preferable than having to log into the forums for general discussion, then log into ContentDB to catch up on developments with mods, games and texture packs. ContentDB is great, don't get me wrong, it's the best project of its kind out there, but it's not necessarily optimised to replace forums.

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Re: Archiving some forum sections and merging the two wikis into one

by Mantar » Post

Lemmy is a replacement for reddit, not a proper forum.
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Re: Archiving some forum sections and merging the two wikis into one

by Linuxdirk » Post

Proper forums are dead. Time to move on and modernize.

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Re: Archiving some forum sections and merging the two wikis into one

by freshreplicant » Post

I mean it is almost Halloween, so I guess it's fitting we're all communicating from beyond the grave! Spoooky...

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Re: Archiving some forum sections and merging the two wikis into one

by Mantar » Post

I know, right? I didn't know I was in the afterlife already, it's cool that I've got internet here.
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Re: Archiving some forum sections and merging the two wikis into one

by Astrobe » Post

This forum and CDB are nice things to have because you don't have to setup a website/forum/wiki/whatever yourself for your content; aside from major games and mods, it's not worth the hassle.

I see this forum evolving to a more technical forum; mainly sections like "Problems" and "modding discussion", announcements and bug reports directly related to Luanti. CDB would/should/could be more user-oriented, "user" as in game/tp/mod user. Bug reports related to a specific game could go the CDB threads for instance.

OTOH I'm a bit worried that both this forum and CDB are generously maintained by a couple of persons who have the right to call it quits and shut them down at any time. I saw this last couple of years two projects that had to go through this.
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