Railroads! Wiki - Add your knowledge!

Falconer · Post by **Falconer** » Mon Jan 01, 2007 2:04 pm

Wikis are places where users can contribute to a particular subject, increasing the knowledge on that subject. We have recently started a Wiki for Railroads! and your contribution is valued as well.

Adding information to the Wiki is very easy. While viewing a page, all you need to do is click on 'edit' and you are editing the page, almost as if you were posting to a forum.

Basic rules to keep the Railroads! Wiki tidy

Make sure to put the railroads logo/image with its link at the top of every page you create. An example of how to do this can be found in the edit mode of existing pages. (first line)
When creating subpages, use the following format: Sid Meier's Railroads!:Pagename (ie: Sid Meier's Railroads!:Maintenance).
Linking to a page would then look like this: [[Sid Meier's Railroads!:Maintenance|Maintenance]]
You can communicate with other contributors through the 'discussion' page.
If you are not certain of your English/wording, put a note up in the discussion page and ask someone to have a look at it for you.

(more will almost certainly follow)

snoopy55 · Post by **snoopy55** » Thu Jan 11, 2007 12:16 am

Falconer - I'm playing with the built in editor and decided to make notes, lots of notes, on how to do it. Can you add a section for Map Making Using the Terrain Editor? And maybe one on Editing Existing Maps. That built in editor can make a mess of a map

Falconer · Post by **Falconer** » Mon Jan 15, 2007 9:06 pm

Been there for a while now, check out the 'Modding the game' section in the Wiki.

Dr Frag · Post by **Dr Frag** » Wed Feb 07, 2007 6:57 pm

Yes, I believe you have to give it a fully qualified file name in the Destination filename: box.

RedKnight · Post by **RedKnight** » Wed Feb 07, 2007 11:37 pm

Ah here we are... right, it needs the extension to know what it is / how to handle it...

What were you thinking of, for the Main Page? It certainly needs to be re-organized... I've only thrown out a straw man. And an unpretty one at that. Compare the Main Page of the other wiki I've worked on a lot... but folks who know wiki formatting better than I do, gave it its good looks.

One problem that always faces Main Pages is, the level of categorization. In the best of worlds, users should be able to find what they want quickly, but without listing a zillion topics on the Main Page. IOW it should be a table of contents, not an index.

This is easier said than done because e.g. right now I'm having trouble keeping Cities, Resources, and Industries partitioned. There are many ways in which they are different (esp. Cities vs. Resources & Industry) - but also a number of ways that the info for them overlaps or is identical (such as, how they Grow). Overlap is bad because it means having two sets of text saying pretty much the same thing, on two different pages... and then you have to update them both, if either is updated. But if you make a separate page for every little concept (so that concepts don't overlap), then you might wind up having a very busy "Index" kind of Main Page.

In the long run, whenever we ran into decisions where the active folks were divided but nobody thought a particular idea was bad per se, we just left it up to, letting whoever had the time to do a big change, do it, and we'd see how it looked. A.k.a. it's easy to be a critique, but actions speak louder than words, laugh.

Still, if an admin has an opinion, you go with what they say. Falconer is an admin, but I'm not.

Anyway... what are your thoughts for changing the Main Page? If it's not a big deal in terms of changing the topics (i.e., if you just want to reformat it), go ahead. Also I personally have no opinions about the Modding section; I'm too busy researching to do much modding. Also, we dearly need more on Multiplayer (which is also not my cup of tea). And although I tossed out topics for chapter 2 (Advanced Info and Strategies), they were just straw men... there's a lot of overlap there.

Note that every page has a History tab that lets you see the page as of any point in the past (plus who made changes). So it's easy to roll it back, if folks want. That takes a lot of pressure off.

Also, if anyone is interested: the Recent Changes button near the top lets you see what has been changed recently. This is a great way to see if e.g. I might've contributed more research, or Dr Frag or WarII might've put up more map mod info, or whatever.

Post by **Warll** » Thu Feb 08, 2007 7:37 pm

Okay in that case I'll start reformatting it. Would any one like to help with the wording? I am sad to say that I am not a man of words.

Dr Frag · Post by **Dr Frag** » Thu Feb 08, 2007 8:06 pm

Get the formating down and I'll prolly change a couple things.

RedKnight · Post by **RedKnight** » Thu Feb 08, 2007 10:11 pm

Looks fine with me. It was pretty garish, using that built-in T.O.C. Compact is better.

I appreciate you mentioning me, but I wouldn't want folks thinking those were "my" sections. Let's take that out. Besides, I really ramble sometimes... you sure it's understandable? hehe

We can all take a whack at re-wording the rest. In fact I expect that the higher sections (past Basics) may entirely re-work themselves, maybe into much different topics. I just threw those out but in reality it'll become whatever folks want to contribute.

Go for it! - RK

Post by **Warll** » Thu Feb 08, 2007 10:48 pm

I know the wording is a little off there thats why i asked if some one could help. Also why is it even called "The Basics" Railroads! has such a small learning curve that theres really nothing to put there. i think some thing like "Game Mechanics" would fit more with the content thats there already. what do you guys think?

RedKnight · Post by **RedKnight** » Thu Feb 08, 2007 10:51 pm

Yeah, I like that better. Go for it. I tossed that first menu out in 5 minutes. The more eyes and contributors, the merrier - RK

RedKnight · Post by **RedKnight** » Sat Feb 10, 2007 4:32 am

Thanks for your work on the wiki, WarII. It was getting lonely out there. All your edits look good. I'm the studious type, but it takes a lot more than that to make a wiki fun.

I edited the wiki Main Page a little, but decided to keep my name there. Just in case somebody thought I wasn't humble.

Dr Frag · Post by **Dr Frag** » Mon Feb 12, 2007 10:55 pm

I've been thinking about the Wiki ToC. There is a List of maps for Railroads! section that contains User Made Maps. I was thinking User Made Maps should be moved to the Modding the Game section and leave everything in the Advanced Information and Strategies section for base game information. That would mean List of maps for Railroads! would contain information on the Stock Maps only.

Dr Frag · Post by **Dr Frag** » Mon Feb 12, 2007 11:17 pm

Also I think the 'Map'/'Map_' prefix is a little much and not necessary since they will all be in the 'Maps' section.

EDIT: Okay party people, I have moved the offending section

and cleaned it up a bit as well as moved the map pages under the SMR Wiki. I also added an Installing Custom Maps section as well as added headings for the stock maps under List of maps for Railroads!.

Let me know if I buggered anything . . .

RedKnight · Post by **RedKnight** » Tue Feb 13, 2007 1:05 am

I thought prefacing the names of the pages for describing maps with "Map_" could be useful because eventually there could be hundreds of maps; someone could then just list all the map pages using Search.

Also it avoids having all kinds of unusually-named pages, relative to Railroads topics per se.

Both of these are aimed at the future, when we hope the wiki has hundreds of pages.

It's just a thought. Whatever folks want.

I like that separation of stock maps and mod maps.

Dr Frag · Post by **Dr Frag** » Tue Feb 13, 2007 2:37 am

Not sure how beneficial that would be since the purpose of moving them into the Wiki was to list them all on one page with direct download links. Why would I Search when I could just click on Custom Maps? But I'll certainly change them over if the need is there. Now or in the furture even.