Wiki for Railroads!

RedKnight · Post by **RedKnight** » Mon Dec 11, 2006 2:05 pm

Is there a wiki for Railroads? I gather there isn't, so maybe a better question is:

Would you be willing to host one? (Those of you in a position to.)

I'm collecting economic data on Railroads, which will probably be modified as more info is collected. Wikis are a much more organized way to present info, than having it scattered across various messages. It will also help organize the ever-thorny info on train routing.

So... who'd like to be a Robber Baron of Railroads, and set up a wiki?

YES!! There is a Wiki now!!! Look at the heading and clic on Wiki
Jancsika 2010 A.D,

darklandz · Post by **darklandz** » Mon Dec 11, 2006 3:25 pm

if there would be enough support i can host and set one up ... since i'm a mapper/modder myself it would be also a good place for the mapping/modding community.

Anyone any suggestions for any opensource wiki's to use ?

RedKnight · Post by **RedKnight** » Mon Dec 11, 2006 4:03 pm

Woo hoo! Sounds like a start, darklandz!

I don't know how many would be interested, but I'd be surprised if it's not enough to make it worth it. I've been working on a wiki for the very old (1994) DOS game X-COM, and it's had more than enough contributors to make it an excellent in-depth place for that game, far more than was ever in e.g. the official strat guide. That's with only a few hardcore contributors at any given point in time. Meanwhile, Railroads! is pretty new and still has plenty of active players.

Still, we can do this: If you're interested, please post a reply saying "I'd like a Railroads! wiki!"

You/someone might also want to ask like this on one of the modder fora here.

I don't know a lot about wiki s/w, except that I've always enjoyed the one for X-COM, whatever it is. Maybe you can tell... there's a little symbol in the lower right of the homepage.

TheProgrammingGuy · Post by **TheProgrammingGuy** » Mon Dec 11, 2006 5:31 pm

I'd definitely love to see a Railroads! wiki. I wouldn't mind contributing barring any personal time constraints. My friends and I ran a wiki for a while while we were all working on a project together.

As for wiki software, I'm not sure how open-source it is, but we used a version of MediaWiki. I think it was available with my friend's hosting package if I'm not mistaken. It seemed to work well and was easy to use, and used pretty standard syntax.

I just checked the X-COM site RedKnight linked, and that also uses MediaWiki. It's free and robust, and it's gotten two thumbs-up so far!

Falconer · Post by **Falconer** » Mon Dec 11, 2006 5:51 pm

If there is enough support for it, we can host it on HG as well.

What sort of info would you like to put on it?

RedKnight · Post by **RedKnight** » Mon Dec 11, 2006 7:38 pm

Cool, Falconer... I'm preparing an econ posting which I'll add a link to (here) when done. This info will be updated and added to as more research is done.

Train routing is another item that folks would probably like to have info for, that's well organized. Probably modders and mappers, like dark says... I don't do that, so I can't say for sure.

In general, most anything FAQ- or sticky-worthy can be put there. The advantage of wikis is that they (can) have static structures (think, Table of Contents) where folks can post and revise info specific to a topic.

Also known as: there are usually tons of good pointers spread throughout forum messages. But hunting them down can be a pain, and it's not hard for some to get lost in the noise (all depending on how much a user wants to search, etc.). This includes how, a forum message thread typically has lots of good pointers - but often spread across dozens of messages. Sometimes with early, not-so-good info supplanted in later messages with better info, etc.

Wikis keep info collated, and it's usually obvious where to edit/put any good new observations somebody might have (on the wiki or appearing elsewhere, like other websites or in forums). They don't suffer from e.g. "keep reading to the 20th message to see the really good way to approach this". Wikis typically have page per topic, which is simply revised to always be showing the best info. (Or variants on the info, or whatever, using a nice TOC.)

This HF forum is sometimes fairly laggy for me. (Is it for other folks?) If it's not just me, it would be great if the HG server that might host the wiki is different from the forum server. Note that Wikis typically have considerably less activity than a forum.

Falconer · Post by **Falconer** » Mon Dec 11, 2006 9:39 pm

Since we've moved server, I've not heard any complaints about lag/slow service. Anyone have an experiences to share on that?

(I'll wait with commenting until some more people have posted)

d53642 · Post by **d53642** » Mon Dec 11, 2006 9:43 pm

Serve runs great for me Falc, sometimes I get lag but its usually normal peak lag when I do.

RedKnight · Post by **RedKnight** » Tue Dec 12, 2006 12:18 am

Ok, here's an example of stuff (more to come later) that I'd have preferred to put in a wiki.

The lag may very well be just me; I've had some connection issues lately.

Falconer · Post by **Falconer** » Wed Dec 13, 2006 6:11 am

Well, that's definitely good stuff.

I'll look into a Wiki setup over the weekend but chances are that we will have to wait until Xmas before I can actually get it up and running. I'll PM you some details for that too.

snoopy55 · Post by **snoopy55** » Wed Dec 13, 2006 7:02 am

Redknight,

Arg - how do I make a fixed-font table here? "Code" doesn't work either.

Use underline: _

How is this:

____Start __75% Price___ 50% Price __25% Price __Final Price
____Price __Value/Year__ Value/Year __Value/Year _Value/Year
Mail __14 ____11 / 5 _______9 / 11 ______6 / 25_____4 / 46 (1876)
Pass_ 21_____17 / 5 ______13 / 13______9 / 28_____6 / 65 (1895)

Or an attachment:

snoopy55 · Post by **snoopy55** » Wed Dec 13, 2006 7:05 am

Falconer wrote:Since we've moved server, I've not heard any complaints about lag/slow service. Anyone have an experiences to share on that?

Wouldn't you know I read this, had no real problems, and when I go to put the message above on.....BOOM, I lost the server for 1/2 hour!

Just my luck!

But really, no problems.

darklandz · Post by **darklandz** » Wed Dec 13, 2006 11:41 am

Falconer, so you are gonna setup a wiki ? if so then no need for me to put one up.

Falconer · Post by **Falconer** » Wed Dec 13, 2006 8:37 pm

I'll look into it this weekend, sort of a 'feasibility study' if you will.

If everything works okay, the study will end up in launch (also this weekend) and you will be able to admin it.

RedKnight · Post by **RedKnight** » Wed Dec 13, 2006 9:48 pm

That sounds great, Falconer. Within a few weeks is fine with me... it took me a week to put together that one posting. FWIW, I don't need or want to be an admin... I've got enough to do.

But kudos to those that are, for the wiki and here

Snoopy, thanks for the tip on using underlining. I borrowed it for that message.

RTF is a good idea too, for more complex info. With the wiki, there will be even more possibilities. I hope they allow more complex doc types on the wiki, like xls, doc, and zip... some of the things I like to post are a lot easier if readers can play with the numbers themself.