Game dev wiki Thread

I think it would be a great idea to have a wiki-system here on ModDb with articles about Game Development - see it as an extension to the forums.
The great thing about a wiki is that:
-you don't have to code anything: adding wiki support is easy Makeuseof.com
-you don't have to "add" anything: the users constructs the database and provides the information
-once it has a few articles, it's a GREAT knowledge database that is pretty much self-administrating

I think that a ModDB/IndieDB wikipedia is another step to make these sites grow even more in popularity.

I'm not too sure how well it would come in handy to be honest. Game development can be a very broad spectrum to cover, and when you start to break it down into more specific categories then there are already existing wikis that cover their respective information quite comprehensively (polycount has a really good wiki for game art, and programs like ZBrush, Blender and Softimage each have their own wikis along with engines like Source, Unity, C4, Crysis and UDK, games like World in Conflict, etc).

Perhaps more useful would just be collecting links to all these different sites and listing them in one location, neatly categorized.

Edited by: Cryrid

I understand your point, but collecting links seems... inefficient.
Maybe someone could create a bot that retrieves the articles from those places and inserts them into a ModDB wiki. A copy bot.

EDIT: Maybe it's a too big project to make such a wiki here but it would be really awesome if you could collect everything at one place.

Edited by: Nightshade

I'm going to contradict myself and agree/disagree with Cryrid.

I've noticed some engines or techniques can be notoriously difficult to find any documentation for. With my preferred engine in particular, most tutorials are near impossible to come by, so I have to make my own. Which usually involves half-way guessing and learning. Torque Game Engine and Torque Advanced were both dropped with hopes set for T3D, lowering the level of documentation. There are plenty more game engines or such that could use some documentation, and would definitely benefit from a wiki on Moddb.

I also noticed this is even popular with well known engines, thanks to some solid tutorials.

Cryrid is right though, there is already a huge amount of information out there for most engines and every step of the game design process, most of it would be duplicates.

Linking would be beneficial but that leaves making the moderators sift through endless (sometimes mindless) edits and additions.

Edited by: JustDaveIsFine

I think it's a great idea Niteshade. Having a thread with all the links to other wikis can be quite confusing and to avoid confusion it really would have to be super organized and well structured. And, to build up such a structure you need quite some time and thinking. Not to mention that you would always have to browse everything to add new links/articles. Also, some sites may die/go offline and then there would be dead links. Long story short: there would be a need of administration.

Having a wiki page/category on ModDB wouldn't be that much more work than that, I guess. I'm not a hundred percent sure about that, but creating a wiki seems less work to me.

Either way, both ideas are great and it would be easier for new comers to start or let's say more people would help, because they would simply link to the wiki or thread instead of writing all their knowledge down each time for each thread.

cheers.

Sounds like a brilliant idea. People say "google it" but a google search can take forever.

Linking would be beneficial but that leaves making the moderators sift through endless (sometimes mindless) edits and additions.

Why would there be moderators shifting through it? Generally wikis clean themselves.

Having a thread with all the links to other wikis can be quite confusing and to avoid confusion it really would have to be super organized and well structured.

You simply have a list that links to every wiki. At most it could be broken into a few categories based on the overall content (engine-based, program-based, art-based, etc). It's not like you'd have to go through and link to every article inside the wiki's.

Sounds like a brilliant idea. People say "google it" but a google search can take forever.

Took me just a few miliseconds.
Wiki.gamedev.net
Gamedev.wikia.com

Just enter topic + wiki, and you will get result.

Maybe someone could create a bot that retrieves the articles from those places and inserts them into a ModDB wiki. A copy bot.

I can see this causing the articles to become quickly unsynchronized.

Edited by: Cryrid

Yes but, certain things i have tried searching for have taken me a very long time just because a lot of the tutorails were usless.

Not google's problem.

Even just a wiki that housed links to various tutorials and information would be nice. Having all of the information in one spot, even if they are links is better than scouring the internet forever looking for it

I was a little mixed before but, in hindsight, this seems like a very attainable idea. Wikis aren't terribly difficult to implement and would help out a lot. I support it.

I think this will contribute to the comunity a lot. Every bit of knowledge that can be shared, should be shared.
There's just one must, all the data has to be checked. A lot of bogus on the wiki would be the last thing we'd like to have on there.

Maybe get a special place where members can send their knowledge, for admins to get it checked on correct knowledge or something.
In two words: big support.

There's just one must, all the data has to be checked. A lot of bogus on the wiki would be the last thing we'd like to have on there.Maybe get a special place where members can send their knowledge, for admins to get it checked on correct knowledge or something.

Wikis in their nature are edited by the community. If an article is inaccurate then it can be edited by anyone to fix.

Also, this thread is suffering from the same problem as many wikis do - the majority of people in favour of the idea are not the people who'd be putting most of the work in. There's not much incentive to spend your free time typing out articles about games when you can be developing or playing instead.

Just forget about this thread - it was a stupid idea

I dont think it was a stupid idea... I think for Mod/IndieDB to do something like this would be a great idea because it in fact is relevant... But there are good points being made, that one needs to look into.

In my opinion, having all you need from one site saves a lot of trouble googling content, not to mention being familiar with a particular structure layout like in Mod/IndieDB or wiki is great for ease of navigation purposes, knowing what you are looking for and where to find it. Some sites are laid out weird and takes a bit of adjusting to understand how they thought out the site, and some are just really confusing.

Anyhow, sir Gibs makes a very good and obvious point... Who is the fucking idiot thats going to be up for this? (for free) lol. figure that one out.

I would imagine a basic mod dev. wiki, and basic Indie dev. wiki to be made, at least in terms of a starting point for newbs. This can be updated with additional information of course by members who progress and would like to share their 2c. Then additional links to other wiki's (since they already exist) for software such as UDK, Blender, etc. to their respective groups (where additional tutorials are posted anyways)

I think above describes a good direction for this to go, much like Moddb.com . good place to start a mod by reading this, but then go into more depth of course covering other aspects, managing, planning, art, concepts, story, audio & music etc... Which is probably leaning more towards guidance from pros giving newbs direction, how to start and where, why, who, what, when... and also a mention on some of the popular and recommended software from beginners to expert, or free to pay for, that are the tools of the trade that have their wiki's linked?

Joe_Shmoe wrote:
Anyhow, sir Gibs makes a very good and obvious point... Who is the fucking idiot thats going to be up for this? (for free) lol. figure that one out.

I'll look into the possibility of cloning wiki-articles to your own wikipedia - I have plenty of time now that I'm unemployed. (I didn't get hired - unlike the other intern at my workplace - which sucks big time )

Well then, I think you can make your idea come alive =] looking forward to it.

PS. Sorry to hear about not getting hired, better luck next time!

I'm not going to promise anything though. I'm just saying that I'm taking a look at the technology - and if it takes too long or is too complicated then I'm not going to do it. I still need to find a job after all

I believe my web coding skills are fair enough though.

Hmmm perhaps, but I think you just need to cover the starting phase like described, get some input from a bunch of pro's and allow them to edit where they feel it is needed, and then the rest that exists, just link it =] I'd say thats fairly easy, but then again I know nothing about web coding =/

I have created a prototype wiki and I know how to import and export articles via the "Special"-command (Special:Export and Special:Import) that most wiki's support.

The problem with this though is that it's not automated: you have to select the specific articles you want to export to an XML.
What I need to find out is how I can do a batch XML export of every single article that a wiki has - preferably with a bot/program similiar to a web crawler.
I read somewhere that using web crawlers on wikis is "frowned upon" but I really don't give a damn: I'm a grey hat ^^
There is a problem with using XML though: it plain-text so you can't really "take" images and move them from one wiki to another.

As for administrating and contributing to the wiki: I'll get to that point once I find out how to batch export and import.

Edited by: Nightshade

Well, sounds like youre a man with a plan =)

Let us know if you have finally got something working to check out!

There's too many problems with this:
-There's too many different wiki systems, some which doesn't even allow XML eport (like polycount's wiki)
-Even with XML export, images are left behind when you do an export/import between wikis - which in turn breaks many articles.

I think that it's smarter to make a special search engine. I'll look into that instead.

EDIT: So in other words: this project is too big for me and I don't have the time for it unless I get paid.

Edited by: Nightshade

My previous team just used MediaWiki and installed it into our server. Obviously it couldn't be that straight forward for Moddb though.

I would be willing to help with this project.
Couldn't we just set up a Wikia page and have it go pro after a while, thus getting our own domain name and advert-free-ness?