Project:Editing Discussion/Archive 02

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Emblem-important-yellow.png Note!

This is a discussion archive for old Editing Discussions. Please add new topics/suggestions/discussions to Project:Editing Discussion and isntead of adding them to this artchive.

What should this be called?

I used "Village pump" as a working name. If it sticks, that's fine. I thought about using a Second Life themed name (e.g. The Telehub), but then realized that there could be confusion between that page and a future Telehub page which actually describes what Telehubs are. Maybe the "Hippo Pond"? -- Rob Linden 18:29, 13 May 2007 (PDT)

That names sounds ok, but what should the namespace be? -- Strife Onizuka 18:44, 13 May 2007 (PDT)
I'm using the same guidelines as other wikis (like Wikipedia's village pump, at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project:Village_pump ), though I'll admit it's a little confusing in this case. One really irritating thing about MediaWiki is that it assumes that the name of the wiki ("Second Life Wiki") is a term that is appropriate to use as a namespace identifier, because it works for Wikipedia. So, we either have to shorten the name of the wiki ("SLWiki", which I think was already being used by someone else), or use "Project". I opted for the latter in configuring this wiki. -- Rob Linden 10:55, 14 May 2007 (PDT)

Guidelines

  • Given past experiences with the forums, some moderation will need to be done. -- Strife Onizuka 18:44, 13 May 2007 (PDT)

I suggest keeping it simple. If it is the only SL Forum call it 'SL Forum'. If it is the SL People's Forum then call it that.Errol Carter

User Pages

A wiki by nature allows all users to edit content of any page, however unlike sites like wikipedia.com, the slwiki has User: pages which by their nature should be moderated only sparingly if at all. NOONE, (either self appointed moderator, "volunter", or support staff alt should be allowed to delete content on a user page that is deemed nonsensical (just because these censors do not "like" the views expressed. If these views do not violate the sl tos, community standards, and the slwiki guidlines, would-be thoguht-police should leave the private user pages alone. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Jumpman Gerje

Pornography

Porn exists in Second Life. It is even endorsed (if backhandedly cf the Official Gude to SL's recommendation that tards persue jobs as virtual escorts) Regions are deemed mature, pg etc. Parts of Second life are notably PG (eg profile pages) Parts of SL are anything goes (group pages in sl). At present there seem to be no specific guidles as to the acceptiblity of mature content (if there are any guidlines please let me Jumpman Lane know). As pornography is accepted in SL, we humbly request that it be allowed in some form in the sl wiki if only ion our user pages. I,Jumpman Lane , am a Second Life pornographer. The mentioning of that on my User page is mentioning my central in-world my activites. Perhaps a mature portal in the wiki is necessary. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Jumpman Gerje

User pages - and all content on secondlife.com - needs to be PG due to the CS ("Names of Residents, objects, places and groups are broadly viewable in Second Life directories and on the Second Life website, and must adhere to PG guidelines."). The recent update of the Editing Guidelines is reflecting this.
Zai signature.png Lynch (talk|contribs) 15:13, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

Purpose

How does this 'forum' differ from the Second Life Forum? (except that this one is accessable by free-accounts)--Vernes Veranes 18:14, 1 June 2007 (PDT)

This is specifically a place to discuss the wiki itself, not Second Life generally. -- Rob Linden 18:19, 1 June 2007 (PDT)


Policy Section

  • To discuss existing and proposed policies

Licensing

Q. Residents have begun to share sculpt maps, textures, and sculpted prims on the wiki. According to the General Disclaimer, "Linden Lab will make your contribution available under the Creative Comments (sic) Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5 license". (cf. Contribution Agreement and the Copyrights Project). Will residents be able to choose other licenses (a different Creative Commons license, GPL, or the Free Art License for example) if they wish to do so? — Yuu Nakamichi 01:08, 4 June 2007 (PDT)
A.: No, not if you host it here. It's just too complicated. You may link to differently licensed material, but please don't expect to choose your own license for information you upload here. -- Rob Linden 11:35, 18 July 2007 (PDT)

Project page vs. Project discussion page

Discussion should occur on the discussion page; with this project page itself being an overview rather than the actual discussion.
Is this correct? --JetZep Zabelin 20:01, 27 September 2007 (PDT)
Well, this page is kind of the exception to the rule, since it's specifically identified as a discussion page. But yes, in general, discussion should go on the discussion page. I thought about putting a redirect from here straight to Project talk:Editing Discussion, but thought better of it. -- Rob Linden 20:59, 27 September 2007 (PDT)

Persistent Logins

Q. Can we please have persistent logins here? I really don't see the need for having to log in each time, it's annoying; but even more annoying is being in the middle of an edit, getting called away, coming back, finishing the edit, clicking the Preview button...only to be told you need to log in to edit, and all the work you've done is gone. Siann Beck 16:57, 9 October 2007 (PDT)
A.: Logins should be persistent for 24 hrs. It could be that our sysadmins needed to reset the sessions, which could lead to the probelm you describe. A workaround for the problem (in Firefox, at least) if it happens again is this:
  • Leave the "you need to log in to edit" screen up
  • Open the login link in a new window
  • Hit reload in the first window. In Firefox, this causes you to get prompted to repost form data. Click "ok".
Sorry that you lost your edits. I know that's frustrating. There are also form saving plugins for various browsers, as well (Firefox Auto Save, for example) -- Rob Linden 17:18, 9 October 2007 (PDT)
Why expire them at all? Can't we have a "Keep me signed in" checkbox on the login page? I'm the only person who uses my computer; I see no need for me to have to log in every day. Siann Beck 04:54, 11 October 2007 (PDT)

NewbieNotes

For some time a call has been made to the general public to modify and simplify the Wiki. NewbieNotes is a response to that, a section for new and experienced scripters alike that is dedicated to explaining LsL in simple English. While in some instances NewbieNotes duplicate some information, it attempts to do so in an easier-to-understand manner for inexperienced scripters (or experienced scripters who are tearing their hair out over some glitch or quirk). NewbieNotes speak plain English and attempt to overcome the "techno-geek-speak" syndrome so often found throughout tech manuals. The NewbieNote Motto: "One simple phrase is better than twelve complex ones".

Barring a counter proposal I will work this into the LSL page style sometime in this week. -- Strife Onizuka 15:30, 26 February 2008 (PST)


[Eren Padar Sept 5 2008]: I just checked out an example of NEWBIE NOTES in the llSetColor() function. I'm honestly impressed. That's exactly what the WIKI has been needing, not only for newbies but for experienced programmers who want a quick, simple refresher. Good job! :)

Sandbox namespace?

At the open source meeting on 2007-11-08, we spent a fair amount of time talking about how wiki.secondlife.com would be used for Architecture Working Group proposals.

A problem that we have right now (and one that existed before AWG, but became more acute now) is that we at Linden Lab host the wiki primarily as a resource to collaborate with the community on documentation and code designs. As a result, we think that people are coming to the wiki with the hope that they're going to find either material that documents Second Life as it is or soon will be, or with roadmap material that Linden Lab had some hand in creating. While a wiki is always more of a "reader beware" zone than many places on the Internet, we'd like to aspire to keeping the main namespace as an area tailored to our intended audience.

That said, we don't mind providing an area for people not affiliated with Linden Lab to collaborate on material that they hope to get Linden Lab's buy-in of, but haven't gotten it yet (within reason). We just want to make sure that material is in a different spot, and is clearly marked as such. Our current solution is to move that type of material into the User: namespace for the person who started the document. However, there are a number of shared documents that don't have an obvious home.

So, I'm dabbling with the idea of creating a new "Sandbox" namespace, where this material would be, and where Lindens can move things rather than delete them. This wouldn't be an unbounded area; we'd still expect people to follow the Project:Editing Guidelines, but would be a little more open to technical proposals that we don't agree with but were made in good faith.

Thoughts? -- Rob Linden 18:28, 8 November 2007 (PST)

How about a "kitty litter" namespace? :)
Are things in Category:Design Discussions problematic as well? If I look at LSL To Client Communication it's pretty clear to me that this is a proposal. With AWG, everything is a proposal, so maybe it's not clear on every page.
I don't think adding a "Sandbox:" to the page title would really make a difference to someone unfamiliar with the Wiki. Unless it says "User:" it's not clear that this is one individual's unsupported vision. Wouldn't it make sense to move the stuff to the "Discussion:" page though? Mm Alder 16:01, 12 November 2007 (PST)
I may revert back to my original proposal, which is to start tagging things with a {{unofficial}} template, and ask people to do this (and to chip in on the tagging effort). The template could be something along the lines of:
This is a Resident-authored proposal, and does not necessarily represent the current state of Second Life or Linden Lab's immediate plans for Second Life.
It seems like we should try to provide some clue to help distinguish the two types of content. "Sandbox:" might still be handy. To a newcomer, it would likely connote that something is a little different about this page. They may not know exactly what, but they'd hopefully be a little more inclined to investigating further before internalizing the information as factual information about Second Life. Would "Proposal:" be a better name? I think in either case (Sandbox: or Proposal:), there would be cases where Linden Lab would use this namespace, too, but would move the document out of "Proposal:" when the document represents the plan of record. -- Rob Linden 17:01, 12 November 2007 (PST)

WikiHUD

Hello, I've begun creating a utility for reading wiki pages in world to fully support this wiki I need to know where the api.php is, so that search and other functions against api.php work. Presently only reading articles works (summary and full modes) because these are against index.php. The code is open source and the object in world is full permissions.

Lillie Yifu 18:15, 15 February 2008 (PST)

Creating a Help portal

  • --I'm interested in making a new portal for General SL Help, for newbies, for veterans, etc. It sounds like I can just make one myself? Do I need Linden approval first (the Editing Guidelines page says "New portals may be added at any time, subject to the discretion of Linden Lab")? Will it automatically appear on the Main Page or do I have to request someone to edit the Main Page? My new portal would have pages like these:

https://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/User:Jaszon_Maynard/Proposed_Second_Life_Help_Portal https://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/User:Jaszon_Maynard/Proposed_Introduction

--Jaszon Maynard 16:18, 26 February 2008 (PST)
I discussed this topic with Jon Linden and Jeremy Linden, and they're generally interested in the concept. Please work with them to develop it, in general I think this is a great thing. -- Rob Linden 18:00, 28 February 2008 (PST)
  • --(be patient, I'm no wiki expert) Also, it looks like we are not trying to separate subject matter via namespaces (well, I see a few spots where we are)? Or has there been a consensus we'd like to start doing that? For instance, I'm going to create a lot of help text. There will be overlap in desired article names...like what a Notecard article should be for me in that context is far different from the Open Source interest in a Notecard article (take a look at theirs). I can just make my article name different ("Notecard (general help)"?)...unless we've decided we want to go forward with separation by namespace. I'm concerned a general member comes here to lookup Notecard and gets a surprising article to them (it all depends on who the person is coming to the wiki what they expect). Are we better off with not separating by namespaces and using default pages with disambiguation pages?
--Jaszon Maynard 09:40, 28 February 2008 (PST)
I think it's good to add general end-user information to that page, and to relegate developer-focused information to a "developers" section or separate it out onto its own page. Don't assume that every page that's currently there needs to be preserved as it is or in the format that it's currently in. The particular page that you cite (Notecards) is a great example of a relatively content-free stub without a lot of good information on it, so to borrow from Wikipedia, be bold! -- Rob Linden 18:00, 28 February 2008 (PST)
  • --Ach, but then if I rename "their" Notecard page to Developer:Notecard or Notecard (for developers), then I have to go update all the links :P I only have so much time to do wiki stuff :P
--Jaszon Maynard 11:20, 29 February 2008 (PST)
I'd recommend relegating it to a page section rather than a wholly separate page. You can have a disclaimer note right at the top of the section saying "This information is likely only of interest to software developers". Since this might be a common thing to do, a template may be appropriate.
Even if you move it to it's own page, it's not necessarily your job to update the links. You should merely just make sure that the page is findable from the new Notecards page. A good example of the technique is on Wikipedia page "Washington", which is a page about Washington state, but there's a link right at the top to the Washington DC article. Make sense? -- Rob Linden 11:45, 29 February 2008 (PST)
--Jaszon Maynard 12:02, 29 February 2008 (PST)
  • --Rob, Jeremy brought up something after you left. He's concerned about newbie's experience on the wiki. Not just whether the layout can be made simple enough, but also the issue of what happens when they search for a topic and some of the hits come back that are regarding technical slants on the subject (i.e.--like the notecard article; which, of course, we can alter). Do you think this is a problem? Is it an argument in favor of namespaces? With a search that defaults to searching only in the namespace that has the general SL user help (main namespace?)?
--Also, do you know if Jon or Jeremy accept email or visit the wiki or any forums in case I want to run a thought or question by them?
--Jaszon Maynard 17:42, 29 February 2008 (PST)
It's not as if the default search preferences can't be altered or anything....
SignpostMarv Martin 07:29, 1 March 2008 (PST)



  • I'm currently working with Zai Lynch on a new Help Portal. We are currently working on video tutorials & glossary pages. All remarks, critics, helps, suggestions are welcome :)
    Gally Young 14:53, 5 August 2008 (PDT)
The Help Portal is now live. Everyone who'd like to contribute can also look at Talk:Help Portal for open tasks. Zai signature.png Lynch (talk|contribs) 15:13, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

Template:Delete

In regards to variouse wiki- and inworld discussions, I added a template (Template:Delete) that marks articles as suggested for deletion, adds them to the Category:Suggested For Deletion and provides the chance to start a discussion about pros and cons of the deletion at a subpage of Suggested For Deletion. This is thought to be for articles that are created accidentally, that violate copyrights, that flame other users (I hate User XY) or anything else where a simple moveing of the article (redirect) or clean-up isn't addressing the root of the problem. So I would be happy if users who'd like to have a look at quality ensurance of the wiki, as well as administrators could have an eye on it.
THX =) --Zai Lynch 04:50, 6 April 2008 (PDT)

User page content policy

  • Is there a guideline/policy which discusses acceptable content/use of userpages, such as mature content[1] ... ? --JetZep Zabelin 14:07, 6 May 2008 (PDT)
  • Since when is mature content barred form sl (and the afovementioned pic is rather tame. Too mature or not it is NOT nonsense as it is a product produced in and out world by Jumpman Lane and has a legitmate place in Second Life (porn is not prohibited) and on the User:Jumpman Lane page (he produces it). Is this the forum really to discuss what is or isnt "mature." And how uch equivocation is required to remove "mature content" when you call it nonsense?

User:Jumpman Lane 14:07, 14, May 2008 (EST) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Jumpman Gerje

  • ARE there ANY guidlines/policies which detail of WHAT exactly constitutes NONSENSE. JetZep Zabelin indiscriminately erased the entire contents of the User:Jumpman Lane Page blanket labelleing it all NONSENSE?!?!(this would seem to constitute vandalism). Baring exact guidlines, I do have a few simple questions. How could pictures of Jumpman Lane be considered nonsense on the Jumpman Lane page,being replaced by THE EXAMPLE PICTURE (which can be changed at anytime by anyone to anything. Since when do links to a users owned and operated websites constitute nonsense when they are income genrating enterprises which had thier start within secondlife.

User:Jumpman Lane 14:07, 14, May 2008 (EST) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Jumpman Gerje

User pages - and all content on secondlife.com - needs to be PG due to the CS ("Names of Residents, objects, places and groups are broadly viewable in Second Life directories and on the Second Life website, and must adhere to PG guidelines."). The recent update of the Editing Guidelines is reflecting this.
Zai signature.png Lynch (talk|contribs) 15:13, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

Wiki Meeting in world?

I would consider it really useful to have some kind of in world meeting about the Wiki (at least once). I don't think we would run out of topics with this... For example the privously mentioned content policy could be one. Another one could be: The Wiki grew to a point where it seems to be useful to translate not even articles but although portals. There are variouse attempts in progress in peoples sandboxes and even in the main namespace. However, this would need additional guidelines to not end up in a total chaos imho. One solution could be WEB-456. Otherwise we would need to talk about stuff like: Are categorized redirects (like the one I made here) appropriate in order to keep topics in a category in a certain language? It can't be intendet that a user who is lacking english skills got to search for the english topic regarding his concern so he can browse via Template:Multi-lang to his language. This would also cause a bulk creation of new redirects for non-english keywords what might lead into confusion, since the wiki is growing and a typo in an english keyword might be the right translation of a keyword in another language (but for a totally different topic). Another one could be: Is it useful to use the Help: namespace for SL help like it is done atm? This namespace is filtered by the Wikis search function by default (at least that's the way it is now). I think there might be way more topics bothering people and it would be nice to have some inworld chat with users and administrators in charge. This meeting could be announced somewhere on the Main Page so the ones who might have an interest in such a meeting (read: the ones who frequently edit the wiki) might stumble upon it. We could create an agenda page where people can add the topics they'd like to see discussed so users can prepare some thoughts on the topic previouse to the meeting itself. Would anyone else think that this is useful? --Zai Lynch(talk|contribs) 04:56, 9 May 2008 (PDT)

Oh, forgot to add:
It is currently not allowed to transfere content from the support portal to the wiki due to copyright issues (see question 4 and 9 of this Q&A transcript). So I would like to see either the wiki copyright or the support portal copyright beeing changed so content can be easily transfered. I would not like to see the Wiki change away from the current Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 license so maybe a support portal Linden might want to attend at such a meeting as well to give a statement on possible license changes. --Zai Lynch(talk|contribs) 05:12, 9 May 2008 (PDT)
The best time to hold such a meeting would be during an office hour, such as Rob Linden's (who I believe is the official wiki linden). We should create an agenda for such a meeting on a wiki page. -- Strife Onizuka 01:13, 10 May 2008 (PDT)
I'm wondering if Rob would prefer to have a small segment of his usual office hours put over to Wiki stuffages, or if he'd be able to have an entire slot dedicated to such a meeting.
SignpostMarv Martin 07:14, 10 May 2008 (PDT)
  • Re:Aganda: please add topics to Project:Editing Discussion/Wiki Meeting Agenda
  • Re:Time: I would be fine with doing it at Rob's office hour but it seems to be some kind of open source meeting already, so I'm not sure if the other attendees would like to see their topics postponed.
--Zai Lynch(talk|contribs) 07:18, 10 May 2008 (PDT)
Guess this meeting isn't neccessary anymore. Zai signature.png Lynch (talk|contribs) 15:13, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

Introduction and a couple of suggestions

First, let me introduce myself: I'm Rand, a newly-hired engineering technical writer at Linden Lab. My purview is technical documentation, both internal and external, at Linden Lab, with emphasis on "technical." In general, I won't be doing the kind of things that the LL knowledge base writers do, but rather focusing more on the needs of developers (mostly programmers, but to a lesser degree content creators). I've been a technical writer for about twenty years, and have worked at places like Netscape, Sun, IBM, Google, and various startups.

I am immediately impressed by the amount of content and level of community interest in the SL wiki. I can tell this is going to be a great community with which to work.

I have a couple of suggestions, that are just ideas, based on a wiki I managed in my last job. These are really just ideas that I have not bounced off of anyone yet, but I wanted to air them here to see the reaction:

  • Everyone knows that Mediawiki's search feature leaves something to be desired. It's fairly simply to create a custom Google Search feature and add it to the wiki toolbar. It would just be another search box below the built-in Mediawiki search box. To give you an idea of what I'm talking about, I created an example. We could customize the look and feel, and perhaps even pay to get the ads removed...
  • This page is a fine start, but a wiki is not really designed to be a discussion forum (Wikipedia's Village Pump aside). Perhaps if there were enough interest, we could get a new forum created in the SL Forums specifically for wiki/documentation discussions. I looked through the forums, but I didn't see anything along those lines. Specialized forum software provides lots of advantages over Mediawiki for ongoing interactive discussions. There might not be enough traffic to warrant it, but I'm just throwing it out as an idea.

Anyway, I look forward to getting involved with the SL community and helping to make the wiki (and by extension, SL) better!

--Rand Linden 19:39, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Heyas Rand! =)
  • I think most people will agree with you on the Google search. Torley suggested in his Wiki video tutorial to use Google with site:wiki.secondlife.com as prefix. I did the same in the Quickie Wiki Intro and suggested such a search bar at a discussion with him. So I'm all for it (as long as the regular search isn't completly removed).
  • At the forum topic: I'm not the biggest fan of forums, actually... And I quite like the non-linear discussions in the Wiki since only those are contributing, who are really interested and active. I'm sure I'd miss discussions in the forums since I never look in there... But that's just my L$ 0.02
Greetz Zai signature.png Lynch (talk|contribs) 00:23, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

KB content

Since it's currently not allowed to use KB article content in the Wiki, it would be nice when interested parties would have a look at WEB-910.
Greetz, Zai signature.png Lynch (talk|contribs) 17:09, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

I totally agree that the wiki should be able to use information from the KB. It's ridiculous not to encourage wide dissemination of SL knowledge. Apparently, it comes from the legal department. I am pursuing meetings with the various parties involved to try to resolve the issue. Hopefully, it won't take too long, but--unfortunately, in my experience--once lawyers get involved, things can take some time.

In the meantime, I suggest you look at "fair use" of SLKB information. That is, one might expect that use of small excerpts for non-commercial use (e.g. the wiki) is unassailable. Also, a light edit--so that the use is not verbatim--would make a huge difference. Personally, I am outraged that there would even be a restriction like this, because it's so obviously deleterious to everyone's interest, including LL.

--Rand Linden 05:52, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Thank you very much for adopting this issue! I'll have a look into the fair use. As for non-commercial: It's not really non-commercial since the CC BY-SA 3.0 would allow commercial usage of the content. So although posting it at the Wiki wouldn't be commercial, it would open doors for commercial use and therefor might count as commercial use for itself already... But that's just my guessing. Anyway: THX for looking into it.
Zai signature.png Lynch (talk|contribs) 18:37, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Revision/Update of the Editing Guidelines

I'd like to propose a revision/update of the current editing guidelines and placed a proposal at User:Zai Lynch/Sandbox/Editing Guidelines Proposal. It incorporates some of the suggestions mentioned here and at Project talk:Editing Guidelines. The difference between the current document and the proposal can be seen here. I think it would be more up to date than what we got now, so in case you're fine with it, you might copy and paste the proposal and alter spots where you might want to improve.
Greetz, Zai signature.png Lynch (talk|contribs) 17:17, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

*ping* Zai signature.png Lynch (talk|contribs) 21:01, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
Has been deployed by Torley (history). Zai signature.png Lynch (talk|contribs) 15:13, 11 April 2009 (UTC)
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