Orbiterwiki maintenance

[BruceJohnJennerLawso]

Hello folks,

If you go over to the XR1 page on Orbiterwiki, you will see the first step in my personal project to restore our information site to respectability and a little bit more. I am unfortunately unsure as to a few things related to the site:

-Who is in charge? I cant seem to find how to add a new page, so Im assuming that I need to get permission from an admin of some type?
-Particular needs. The wiki is lacking in content and poorly formatted in some areas, but the biggest problem appears to be the number of pages that link to anything vaguely relevant to the orbiter community right now (IMS, XR2 or XR5, up to date info on UMMU/UCGO/Orbitersound, the graphics clients, the Iron Hill Project, the OFMM, honestly I could go on forever :lol. If you see anything else that we need a page for, let me know, Ill add it to the list
-Volunteers. Im willing to do this completely alone, but I hope it doesnt take too long. If you can write/communicate well, gather info, create terrific photos, etc, and are interested in helping out, PM me or post on this thread, and we can work something out.

Feel free to post any thoughts you might have on this thread.

 

[sorindafabico]

I can help randomly.

 

[Quick_Nick]

I know Urwumpe has been the main OrbiterWiki guy throughout its history.
Let's see if he can :ninja: me.

 

[Urwumpe]

I know Urwumpe has been the main OrbiterWiki guy throughout its history.
Let's see if he can :ninja: me.

I am just the front pig there, the main OrbiterWiki responsibles are RaMan and Timwi, who run the show.

Creating a new page is pretty simple: Search for the term, if it doesn't exist and similar pages are not suitable, create a new one.

 

[BruceJohnJennerLawso]

I can help randomly.

Well could you randomly make some pics that would be good for XR2 and XR5 pages?

 

[sorindafabico]

Well could you randomly make some pics that would be good for XR2 and XR5 pages?

Of randomly course!:thumbup:

 

[Wrangler]

Count me in Bruce. You might have to proof read me later, but I am willing to contribute to the community if I can.

 

[BruceJohnJennerLawso]

Count me in Bruce. You might have to proof read me later, but I am willing to contribute to the community if I can.

No worries, I trust you... mostly :lol:
Would you be interested in creating some quality pages on some of the VSAs currently going on? Another good place to start might be the UMMU page, it needs to be reformatted as information for beginner users. Im sure I can convince Dansteph to move the dev stuff elsewhere. Thankyou for offering

 

[yagni01]

What type of XR-series info are you wanting?

I'll try to take a look at the Flight Deck section again; I'm sure I can find a couple new pearls of wisdom to add Would folks be interested in some how-tos/examples of specific hardware installations?

I know bhawthorne promised us a nice section on video projection (hint, hint) :hello:

 

[BruceJohnJennerLawso]

What type of XR-series info are you wanting?

I'll try to take a look at the Flight Deck section again; I'm sure I can find a couple new pearls of wisdom to add Would folks be interested in some how-tos/examples of specific hardware installations?

I know bhawthorne promised us a nice section on video projection (hint, hint) :hello:

:huh:. Sorry you lost me there. I messaged Dbeachy for XR info, but if theres a nice little factoid you want to add, feel free. Just make sure whatever we do is organized. (ie maybe add a interesting facts section?) Sorindafabico is going to create some nice XR screenshots for me, but anything you can add to that is good by me :thumbup:.

Hardware installation? Are you talking about setting up joysticks, Flybywire interfaces, etc.? That would be a good resource under tutorials.

video projection? Like having a orbiter sim window projected onto a monitor representing a side window, porthole?

If your coding skills are still sharp, maybe could you take a look at the starting to code section? (setting up a VC++ project was one) We need to really give that section an overhaul, as its outdated & a little misleading being for Orbiter 2006 & the VC 2005 studio

 

[BruceJohnJennerLawso]

Posted another round of edits this morning, among others, UMMU and Velcro Rockets should be less confusing and more up to date. I would really appreciate if anyone who has a minute or two to spare would go over to Orbiterwiki & look over some of the pages. Its really not going to be a real wiki if only one person writes it . A couple of other things as well:

-Big thanks to sorindafabico for the XR series pictures. Always nice to have some material to work with at the start
-I would still like some more requests for new pages. If its about Orbiter & its reasonable, Ill write it for you! But be aware that the more I get into this the less time Ill have to take requests.
-The Manifest Destiny page, here http://www.orbiterwiki.org/wiki/Manifest_Destiny. Im not going to go around gutting pages just because I dont like them, but multi-page project proposals that never appear to have progressed beyond the planning stage in half a decade are just useless clutter IMHO. I was wondering if I could get a general consensus to at least de-link this from the addons category?
-UMMU & DGIV chicken & the egg question: did UMMU grow out of the DGIV, or vice versa? Danstephs writing on this is clear as mud to me, so I wanted to see if anyone knew before I started editing
-Request to any admin reading this, could this thread be moved to the general web forums? I have a feeling I will be using it fairly frequently

 

[4throck]

If you/we start devoting out little time to deleting stuff, nothing new will be created. The right option is simply to concentrate on updating the current topics and creating new pages with basic info that can be expanded latter.

I tried to do that with Space: 1999, starting with a list of spacecraft and locations seen on the show.
Now that we have it, it's simple to add links for the relevant addons for the current Orbiter version...

Similar lists come to mind based on real spacecraft, engines, etc, etc. A simple reference of what we have in the general context of the real of fictional universes.

 

[Urwumpe]

Also, the orphaned projects don't harm and it is really hard to prove that they can be edited as "projects lost in development hell".

I would love to see a general list of real/fictional spacecraft components, including links to manufacturer specs, if available.

Don't delete information, if it is not wrong or there is no good reason to do it. Better keep it, and organized the articles better, if the information is not that important. And if you want to priorize stuff, better discuss your priorities there first, ideally in the Wiki itself and not here, because there it is needed. It should ideally be the same priorities for all articles and spacecraft and objective... not just a matter of taste of a single author, to prevent editing conflicts in advance.

 

[BruceJohnJennerLawso]

Also, the orphaned projects don't harm and it is really hard to prove that they can be edited as "projects lost in development hell".

I would love to see a general list of real/fictional spacecraft components, including links to manufacturer specs, if available.

Don't delete information, if it is not wrong or there is no good reason to do it. Better keep it, and organized the articles better, if the information is not that important. And if you want to priorize stuff, better discuss your priorities there first, ideally in the Wiki itself and not here, because there it is needed. It should ideally be the same priorities for all articles and spacecraft and objective... not just a matter of taste of a single author, to prevent editing conflicts in advance.

Dont worry, I wasnt going to delete anything, I just think Manifest Destiny is a little confusing when listed under addons. It might make more sense to classify it under a new category "development projects", showing that its a definite WIP, not anywhere near a finished project. That way, confused new Orbinauts dont go searching Orbithangar for a non-existent package. Its not really important though, I was more interested in the UMMU/DGIV question above.

I would be happy to create that real spacecraft/components part, but it would make more sense if I could get a good mesher to create some stock ones to include on the page. Otherwise we might as well just link straight to whatever wikipedia/the manufacturer has.

Thanks to whatever admin moved the thread for me :tiphat:

 

[Urwumpe]

I would be happy to create that real spacecraft/components part, but it would make more sense if I could get a good mesher to create some stock ones to include on the page. Otherwise we might as well just link straight to whatever wikipedia/the manufacturer has.

I would have no problem without the meshes... the list can then also be a reason for a mesher to pick a component without meshes and it can sure also be possible and even very useful to have more than just one mesh for a component. Think of an artificial horizon there, which could be useful in different accuracies, from a detailed mesh to a simple set of textures to be used in a Panel2D (including a short "assembly manual" how to include and animate it there.)

The more solutions there are for a problem, the more likely somebody can solve it.

 

[Artlav]

Oh, nice.
Urwumpe and spambots now have company

What would really help Orbiterwiki, make it's maintenance more meaningful, and make it useful is a link on it from the forum's top.
Not an obscure one in the menu, but a big WIKI button.

Tex?
What do you think?

 

[Loru]

Big enough?

 

[Urwumpe]

Big enough?

No. :lol:

 

[BruceJohnJennerLawso]

I would have no problem without the meshes... the list can then also be a reason for a mesher to pick a component without meshes and it can sure also be possible and even very useful to have more than just one mesh for a component. Think of an artificial horizon there, which could be useful in different accuracies, from a detailed mesh to a simple set of textures to be used in a Panel2D (including a short "assembly manual" how to include and animate it there.)

The more solutions there are for a problem, the more likely somebody can solve it.

Err, okay but I dont know anything about ADI balls yet. Maybe Hlynacq would be interested in helping with that page, given all of the hair-pulling he dedicated to his. One more time though, did the DGIV lead to UMMU or vice versa?

---------- Post added at 02:14 AM ---------- Previous post was at 02:04 AM ----------

Big enough?

:lol:, no it needs to be a big red button that gets added to everyones keyboard. Whenever they get confused they can just smash down on it to summon the wiki. :compbash2:

I would suggest just creating a new section linked at the top (Home-articles-Blogs-Projects-Tutorials...) with links to anything Orbiter outside of the forums. This could include:

-OVP repository site
-NASSP site
-AMSO site (I found this one hard to track down for some reason)
-Orbiterwiki
-Danstephs site
-Vinkas page for SC3/Multistage 2
-Dumbo2007s surface physics project
-Artlavs site

Does that sound reasonable?

 

[dansteph]

-UMMU & DGIV chicken & the egg question: did UMMU grow out of the DGIV, or vice versa? Danstephs writing on this is clear as mud to me, so I wanted to see if anyone knew before I started editing

Short answer: first "DGIV" then UMmu.

Years ago I was bored one night and wanted to add *one* airlock button (sic) on the stock DeltaGlider.
I finally added plenty and this became the DGII "g-sndo", the first "DGIV" in brief.
An old page about DGII:
http://www.eharm.net/shop/freeware/orbiter/addons/dgii/dgii.html

"G-SNDO" was because I made one uggly repaint of wings to distinguish the DG-II from stock deltaglider
and I added a fake english ICAO identificator "G-SNDO" (somewhat an anagram of "sound")
Here the DGII-DGIII doc (still online ? wow !) with the paint:
http://orbiter.dansteph.com/francophone/docdgIIfr/DeltaGliderII_Doc_fr.php

Then for the 3rd version I added some crew and EVA capacity (for the DGIII-6 at first) and while
I was here I made this SDK public: UMmu.

Here the alpha version of UMmu for the DGIII-6 but I think it was finally released as UMmu 1.5 and the DGIII whent DGIV version at this occasion.
http://orbiter.dansteph.com/forum/read.php?f=2&i=7463&t=7463

Here the gold beta release of UMmu 1.5
http://orbiter.dansteph.com/forum/read.php?f=2&i=9774&t=9755