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Could a 'basic trouble shooting guide/quick how to do things list' be created 'somewhere' - possibly at Help:Wikia Basics.
Thus, for example:
- 'How do I switch the clock on?' - 'Follow X'
- 'How do I redirect to (wiki main page) rather than activity page?' 'Go to Special:Preferences|your personal preferences.'
- 'How do I include a reference from Wikipedia' 'Use following format.'
etc etc
Links to more information can be provided as required. Jackiespeel 21:52, December 11, 2011 (UTC)
- I heartily concur. (It looks like the first two of those questions were taken from my own questions, one on this Forum and one on your Tea Wiki!) -- BruceG 11:42, December 12, 2011 (UTC)
- Yes - I was just looking around for convenient examples. Jackiespeel 13:35, December 12, 2011 (UTC)
- Such things have been discussed quite a few times with little respons from staff. Category:FAQs is currently your best option to find some answers, and you will have to ask and/ or dig into various wikis to find other information. It needed quite some effort to get them to review the basic helpfiles, and even with them offering to get a drastic change to the looks of community central such a thing has not occured till date, so remains hard to find what you are looking for.
- But - *that is the point* . and the quick fix/problem solver/which section to go to next need only cover one stage beyond the basics. 19:10, December 13, 2011 (UTC)
- Perhaps there should be a tips forum, a place where people can post tips and tricks, which can then be vetted by the community as well. It'd be easier to find than a posting on some random user's blog, since a forum would list all the postings there in a convenient manner, instead of a user blog here and there. ForestMonthZero 07:36, December 14, 2011 (UTC)
- The 'format' doesn't matter nor where the original questions are posted/useful tips posted, just that 'the information' is readily available - and whether it is a direct answer or (Non tecchies follow this link/here is the detailed geek explanation) links does not matter. Jackiespeel 10:17, December 14, 2011 (UTC)
(reset indent) Funny, that is actually there, only very hard to find because completely scattered on wikia wiki's. But there is information about Javascipt, Java, CSS, PHP, Perl, Python, and a lot of other user orientated scripts, templates and ways to do things. Only finding them is the hard part. You could for instance take up this challenge yourself, create a blog which starts to collect all usefull information (gives you control to organise it) and have people give tips on the comments. It will soon become the most looked at blog, staff will notice it and will maybe even take up the task of putting your trillion tips containing blog the next level help wiki. The wiki experience wiki so to say. Oh wait... i already started something like that ;)
I do ask you to use indents tough for answering questions to make it more readable.
- What I am after (and probably many others) is something simple - the listing at the back of the manual which starts 'Machine does not work': 'Is it switched on/plugged in' - we do not need to know Java from coffee, Python from Monty etc.
- So on the list there would be
- For Javasc(r)ipt/Java/...Python click (here)
- For templates go (here).
- We are looking at two different aspects of what is required. Jackiespeel 18:40, December 14, 2011 (UTC)
- I actually don't think we do. But where you want others to make it, i suggest making it yourself and getting it noticed, implemented and then available for the whole Wikia world to be used (and contributed to).
- A wiki might be a good place to start, so it can be implemented like the help wiki.
While I am willing to trawl through the wiki questions and forums etc, I am already involved with several wikis and do things elsewhere. 'Whatever it is' would require several people to keep it going and possibly several pages - including for rough drafts and for finished efforts, and 'persons with a reasonable level of literacy and proofreading capabilities.' From what I see a screed on Wikia central would be more useful than a separate wiki (there is little cooperation between wikis and 'hunting summat down across the wikiverse' can be frustrating. Jackiespeel 22:55, December 15, 2011 (UTC)
- Well, you could add draft pages to Help wiki and ask staff to move them to shared help pages when you think they are ready. I did this a few times, but it sort of makes me mad that Wikia help pages are so inadequate. They want to add new features, but do a very poor job of documenting them and get further and further behind. The Oasis changeover was an example of Wikia at it's worst, but it hasn't gotten a ton better where Help pages are concerned. -- Fandyllic (talk · contr) 16 Dec 2011 6:15 PM Pacific
- We are actually in the middle of many projects that address these concerns. Dopp is actively working on the Help pages. They're being rewritten and organized. We've also recently enlisted the community to help write basic Guides on Founder. We're aiming to make these Guides like a wiki 101 package; the real basics of things one should know when starting out. We also have a blog we post once a month called Wiki Wisdom that we recently started, where we highlight great tips/help/advice written by the community. Sarah also holds monthly webinars, where users can ask questions & get help. We also have a few other projects we're working on for users to get help — that are pretty exciting. Fandyllic or WikiPim, if you are having a hardtime finding the stuff I mentioned I'd be more than happy to show you where you can tune in. Jackie, I'd love to talk with you further about what you'd like to see on the Guides if you think we could add something. Thanks! --Meighan
(help forum | blog) 03:30, December 17, 2011 (UTC)
- We are actually in the middle of many projects that address these concerns. Dopp is actively working on the Help pages. They're being rewritten and organized. We've also recently enlisted the community to help write basic Guides on Founder. We're aiming to make these Guides like a wiki 101 package; the real basics of things one should know when starting out. We also have a blog we post once a month called Wiki Wisdom that we recently started, where we highlight great tips/help/advice written by the community. Sarah also holds monthly webinars, where users can ask questions & get help. We also have a few other projects we're working on for users to get help — that are pretty exciting. Fandyllic or WikiPim, if you are having a hardtime finding the stuff I mentioned I'd be more than happy to show you where you can tune in. Jackie, I'd love to talk with you further about what you'd like to see on the Guides if you think we could add something. Thanks! --Meighan
The list of forum topics gives some idea of what people wish to have for quick reference purposes (along with eg the suggestions I pose above) - and a 'forum for useful tips etc based on what wiki(a)users discover as they go along.' The whole to be aimed at the persons who wish to develop their pet wikis rather than working with the tortoise upon which the wikiverse rests. Jackiespeel 21:37, December 17, 2011 (UTC)
- I agree with Jackie that we need to consider "persons who wish to develop their pet wikis rather than working with the tortoise upon which the wikiverse rests." I suspect that I'm a little more tech-savvy than Jackie but not up to Fandyllic's level, but the lack of documentation of a lot of Wikia's features (or, in some cases, merely the lack of guidance as to where the documentation is) can be something of a barrier when I want to do something. Meighan: It looks like you're trying to do something. But until your post, nobody was even aware that this was going on. Even this was a case of poor documentation — knowing that something was being done might have precluded the need for much of what was posted in this thread. -- BruceG 03:09, December 18, 2011 (UTC)
And whatever one's level of tech knowledge it is useful to have a list that includes things occasionally used until one memorises the format.
Perhaps there could also be an equivalent of Wikipedia's [1] Jackiespeel 22:41, December 18, 2011 (UTC)
There is possibly a need for several pages - something aimed at newbies, one an aide memoire, 'to set up a redirect do this, to turn the clock on do that, change the following as appropriate for a WP reference/cross-link with another wiki'; the equivalent of the WP page I mention above, and 'materials aimed at those dealing with the tortoise' (each wiki being one of the component plates of the tortoise' shell). Whether there should be an article on wiki-English spellt proppr and wrote grammatic-wise is another matter entirely.
(Note that I am making a slight distinction between wikis-in-general and those hosted on wikia: though much will be the same) Jackiespeel 17:30, December 19, 2011 (UTC)