Oddworld wiki
 

Mod edit: this thread is coming from a discussion originally started in here.

Seperately, and I'm only mentioning it because it appeared higher in the Google results than TOL: Is this the most pointless wiki page ever?

Haha it's miserably useless. Entries like that one are what makes me want to do my own wiki to replace TOE.

I actually remembered this one from months ago and went looking for it.

It gets worse.

Seriously, the Oddworld Wiki is just absolutely abyssmal.

Yeah, this fan community really sucks. We don't even have anyone knowledgeable in the Lore who is prepared to spend hundreds of hours corralling vast quantities of data into a serviceable website.

You do realize that the point of a wiki is that anyone can edit it?

I think his point was that TOE isn't publically editable and he wants it to be.

• The problem with TOE is that it's not editable and that neither Wil nor I have enough time to write all the content.
• The problem with the Oddworld Wikia is that it's full of crap such incorrect info, useless entries and fan-fiction.

That's why I'm thinking about doing a new Wiki hosted by TOL with some reviewing and trusted users mechanisms. The idea would be that registered trusted users can directly edit the pages while on the other hand the new users can just submit suggestions that need to be approved.

Wil set up a wiki on TOL to play ages ago but I realy need to read a couple of guides before setting it up the way I want it. Also it's ugly as hell right now :p

And to be honest I'm not even sure I'll find people wanting to contribute to it.

That seems like a placeholder entry, tbh. I mean if you find it bothersome you should copy and paste the credits you linked to in that wiki page.

I mean, I don't really see the point in another Oddworld wiki. This one isn't great but it could be if people like you, Xavier, added to some of its pages. I don't see much point in starting from scratch unless you really want to be the wiki admin or something.

Well the people who admin the current wiki appear to be fairly uninterested in actually maintaining a quality wiki, so I don't really see why we shouldn't make a new one.

I get your point about it being silly to have another Oddworld wiki. But at this point it goes against so many things I want when I'm looking for a wiki that I can't bring myself to contribute. It's all over the place. It's absolutely painfull to look at on a design point of view, it's littered with advertising and for some reason it allows people to have blogs on it. And that's just a small subset of the problems I have with it.

Also, as already explained, it's full of crap at the moment and I don't think the current admins will like it if I go around and start deleting all the fanfiction/fanart content.

What the current wiki needs is to have the content of the pages backed up, have the platform rebuilt from a fresh install and have it repopulated with the good articles that are in there.

Also it's true, I wouldn't mind being the admin of this. Wil and I already came up with a global vision for the Wiki and I think I already proved I could dedicate some time for Oddworld on a regular basis by moderating this forum and keeping TOGG up to date.

If it were to replace TOE (starting with the existing content), we'd end up with exactly the same number of Oddworld info sites as previously. But now more useful.

Also, having it hosted on TOL gives it a respectability that a wikia page never can have.

I mean, and I don't want to offend anyone, but TOL has pretty much no visibility. Unless it was linked by oddworld.com. I imagine when fans want general lore information and the like from a game series they generally such for a wiki. I mean, that's what I've generally done over the years. Wikis might not be the most respectable sources (God knows historians dislike them) but for a video game series it seems pretty fine to me.

It just seems to me that having multiple wikis may dilute the pool so to speak. And most people will probably just go for the general oddworld wiki anyway as opposed to whatever title Xavier would call it. It could work. Perhaps a Gamepedia Wiki would be better? The Binding of Isaac Rebirth one is very comprehensive.

Or perhaps, Xavier, you could message the admins of the Oddworld wiki? I mean, generally, it's the fanbase that maintains a wiki - rather than a few dedicated admins. These guys might have just set it up to get the ball rolling since no one else had.

Wikia is pretty much the biggest recognized institution on the internet when it comes to fan based wiki's for games. Every major game's wiki site is a Wikia page. Starting your own wiki is really really redundant, especially since you can just edit every single page on the Wikia to update it with the relevant info you were going to put on your own wiki anyway. Just create an account and go wild. Saves you a lot of hassle.

No offense taken, it's good to talk about this with people who have opinions on this matter. I agree that visibility is a huge issue here and without any help from Oddworld.com I have to agree people will most probably go to the Wikia.

The thing here is that we have already invested in a server and I've worked quite a bit to keep complete control over the data. That's why TOGG is using Piwigo as it allows me to keep my files on my own server and not dump them somewhere in the cloud where I have no idea what is happening to them. I'd like to keep control on the data that is on the TOL hosted wiki as well.

Furthermore I'm not sure how open Wikia is if I want to play a bit with the code to integrate some galleries coming from TOGG.

As for the dilution problem I'm not sure that's really a problem when you look at the current landscape of Oddworld fansites. There's the OWF, TOL, the Oddworld Wikia and only a handful of other smaller initiatives.

I agree about the recognition and the redundancy. Still I already explained why I really don't feel like contributing to it in its current state and I can't believe I'm the only one in that situation.

Two of the wiki's three admins haven't been active for years and the third last edited in February.

The place gets regular enough edits that you probably couldn't adopt it but it looks like it just needs a couple of dedicated someones to clean things up.

Starting by prefixing fan fiction articles with Fanon or summat. :fuzwink:

Xavier's recognized efforts in the fan community should go a long way. If anything we can get Lorne himself to say "HEY! This guy needs to be admin on the Oddworld wiki! He does stuff!" :P

If you need people to contribute. Just come to the forum. Make being a member while not making worthwhile contributions a bannable offence.

I'm planning to play around with wikimedia this weekend. I'll see what I can easily build :)

I'm willing to contribute. It's not like I spent a good couple of years of my life absolutely obsessed with this game and it's lore.

Thanks Hulaabeo that's good to know :)

Current status is that I've upgraded our current Wiki to the latest release (1.24.2) without screwing up the database :)
I'm now looking for a wikimedia skin that doesn't make my eyes bleed and at the same time is easy to maintain. For some reason this is surprisingly difficult.

Any suggestions are welcome at this point.

Why not use the regular Wikipedia skin with some modified graphics? The Portal Wiki looks really good, and it's not 2002 anymore, we don't have to use themed graphics.

http://theportalwiki.com/wiki/Main_Page

Take a look.

If you need some images or graphics. I could give it a shot. Granted I'm not amazing with vectors.

(the wiki's logo for example)

Yeah I'm aiming for something like that but I wanted to use an other base skin then the one they use (Vector). The idea was to have something simple with a single banner, a bit like what I used for TOGG. But for some reason I can't seem to find any nice skin (did not go trough all of them yet).

Now that I see what the portal wiki has done I agree that using Vector as a base and using a few simple images might do the trick. The issue here is that I have more skills with code than with graphics ;)

Could be a very simple black or white background with the big yellow Mudokon smiley face in the left corner.

Also you have to give it a good name, like how the Fallout Wiki is called The Vault Wiki, it's old name was Nukapedia which imo is better. >.>

Fartpedia.

...

wait, I have a better one!
Lornepedia. Please call it Lornepedia!

Scrabapedia

Parapedia

Oh god the potential is endless, I sense a competition.

Spoocepedia

^ Best

Unfortunately, Varrok, the average fan isn't as hardcore as yourself to get it