Smogon Competitive Wiki

[MythTrainerInfinity]

After looking through some of the threads in The Suggestion Box and a few cans of Mountain Dew I had an idea... What if we had an easily accessible and searchable Wiki for Smogon's articles and such. I'm just going to throw out some ideas that'd make a Wiki make our lives all the more easier.

I suppose this could potentially replace the current interface of the main page with a wiki hub which would probably help disperse information easier (ex. news archive, important tournaments, ladder statistics, etc.). Easy navigation of things like a pokémon's ideal sets with a table of contents that'd let you jump right to a certain set, other options, etc.

Wikis are everywhere and its easier to locate, promote, etc. certain articles, suspect tests, showcasing really well written articles (which helps set more of a standard), and overall I think it would be much more organized than what we currently have...

If something accidentally gets deleted or you want to change something back to how something was you could just transfer the contents of the article from a previous date that's stored in the Wiki.

Giving credit where credit is due anyone and everyone could check to see who edited/updated an article last.

Organization of tier lists; instead of having to scroll down to see every mon that's OU/UU/whatever you could just have it in a certain category and it'd be easier to view all of a certain tier. There's all sorts of things you could do with this in Wikis.

Of course this would be limited to editing for users who can be trusted.

This idea will take a lot of work, but I am sure that Smogon is more than large enough to get a lot of people to make sure this goes about smoothly. I heard LCers tried to get a Wiki going for the LC metagame specifically, but it doesn't seem like it really went well, but if we involve all of Smogon with its wn Wiki I think we could get it done.

PS. Don't try to start one on Wikia, I tried to make one on there for competitive pokémon battling a couple years ago. Regardless... it was rejected.

PSS. Its about 2:30 AM, so I may not make perfect sense out of everything (I'm half-asleep when typing this). I apologize if something does not make sense in this post.

So uh yeah, what do you guys think?

 

[Thorns]

that's a pretty good idea but i feel that the search function is already good enough. most pages are pretty accessible. i wouldn't mind replacing the main page with a wiki hub, but it's fine as it is, so i wouldn't mind either way.

 

[MythTrainerInfinity]

Aha, glad you like the idea.

Anyways, how often do you really find yourself using the search function normally at the top of every page on Smogon? What about in comparison to the left (or right) side of a Wiki?

Let's say I wanted to search for the "Classic Mixmence" moveset. There's some talk of it in RMTs and such, but that does not lead me directly to what it is. On a Wiki, however, we can have it directly open up to the part of a 4th Gen Salamence's article that shows and explains the set.

What I'm trying to say is it would help for the sake of organization and locating particular information for beginners where Smogon might be a little intimidating to look through.

 

[RBG]

Believe it or not, the SCMS is like a wiki in with sighted revisions. You are asking for a Wiki in the style of MediaWiki I am presuming. That is a rather big change that i doubt will be happening.

And I doubt the wiki would be easily linkable to on the forums. People could easily link to the Pokemon from RMTs right now and do exactly what you suggest doing.

 

[Cathy]

As RB-Golbat said, we already use a Wiki to manage site content, namely the Smogon CMS. All badged members are able to make revisions to site content, and anybody with the Site Staff badge can make a given revision live. Considerations like revising the main page do not require switching to a different CMS. We are not going to be switching to MediaWiki; it would be a disadvantage since the SCMS has a lot of custom code to handle the pokedex and other dynamic content.

As for easily linking to pages on the site, I could (and might) add a syntax like [[Snorlax]] or [[gs/Snorlax]] to the forums for linking into analsyes, or it could just be a traditional bbcode like [dp]Snorlax[/dp] or [gs]Snorlax[/gs]; the latter would be simpler to implement (the forum supports custom bbcode out of the box), although it's a bit less elegant.

 

[capefeather]

I wonder if the search function really is enough. I'd never even heard of stuff like the Smogon philosophy page until someone randomly linked to it. I'd think this kind of thing would be important to emphasize at least a little. There are a couple of other things I can't remember atm, but overall I think Smogon is perhaps relying a little too much on the search function as THE navigation button.

I say this here because the idea of an editable wiki reminded me of the great navigation systems wikis often end up having, and I'm not sure I could flesh this out into an entire thread. I'm not advocating an anybody-can-edit wiki, though.

 

[MythTrainerInfinity]

A lot of hard work has gone into SCMS. Isn't about time we upgraded a few things though? I haven't edited an article in the MediaWiki template for some time, but it had more options to edit, organize, and just make things look neater in comparison to the SMCS.

I don't know about you guys, but I see a lot of people link to stuff in Bulbapedia for all sorts of pokémon info. If Smogon had its own easily navigable Wiki thingy it would probably increase traffic and interest to Smogon in general.

I think MediaWiki looks much more appealing and organized than the SCMS. However, if you guys don't want to switch over to that I have some suggestions for the SMCS. I for one would love to see a public news archive, a mention of some upcoming user-run tournaments on the main page (perhaps it would encourage more people to get active on the forums), etc. The blank space on the lower left corner of the main page doesn't look appealing and well... the main page could use a lil' makeover in general...

It'd be really cool to have like a table of contents for each pokémon and their sets to increase navigability (that'd probably help people navigate stuff like the "Heatran Novel" and perhaps make things less intimidating for people to read).

 

[cim]

Coming back from months and months of break to comment here, figures it'd be MTI to make it happen. >_>

A wiki would be cool and all, but really that's exactly what the SCMS is. Most of your arguments for switching to MediaWiki really don't make much sense to me. The SCMS and MediaWiki websites are about equal in terms of ease of navigation in my opinion. Can you tell us what specifically about the SCMS is harder to use than Bulbapedia? Other than the sidebar being shorter than the info on the main page?

A wiki would mean changes would get implemented a little faster, but the basic form of content control that is the Analysis Workshop and only badged members getting SCMS access really does a lot for a small community like Smogon. Considering how active people with editing priveleges are, the speed gains would be at best negligible.

Then consider a controversial analysis. Imagine if you added your Psycho Shift set to Cresselia. Some other person removes it. Discussion and edit warring ensue. Unlike Wikipedia (where there are clear cut policies on exactly what to include and not include, and even there "edit wars" are common), there's no objective measure on what constitutes a set being included on Smogon, and that's one of the major functions of AW.

A large part of Smogon's appeal in my opinion is the professionalism of its main site. Would that not be much harder to maintain on a wiki? It's certainly possible, but it would take a lot of work.

If you're having problems using the SCMS to edit articles, ask someone nicely and they'll help you. It's really not that hard.

 

[eric the espeon]

This idea will take a lot of work, but I am sure that Smogon is more than large enough to get a lot of people to make sure this goes about smoothly. I heard LCers tried to get a Wiki going for the LC metagame specifically, but it doesn't seem like it really went well, but if we involve all of Smogon with its wn Wiki I think we could get it done.

PS. Don't try to start one on Wikia, I tried to make one on there for competitive pokémon battling a couple years ago. Regardless... it was rejected.

Its true that on chrisisme's suggestion (edit: wrote this before he posted directly above, speak of the devil..) we did try and set up a LC wiki, and that it failed, though that never got of the ground at all thanks to a delay in format agreement and splitting an already small pool of contributors still further.

And we did it on wikia, it was rejected but we used a scratchpad wiki (which tbh, sucked badly.).

Anyway, I like the idea of a wiki. Not as a replacement to SCMS for the analysis or long articles, but as an addition to Smogon. Wikis with almost open editing (account approval, no edits for very new accounts, maybe approved members only, and the like) could allow people to contribute little things that don't require an entire article, to find detailed info on many game mechanics players have to go to bulbapedia, serebii or the like. Even basic things like IVs and EVs are only touched on by various articles, there is no "this is what they are in simple" page that would help very new players get started. The same goes for things like PokeRus, EXP formula, Catch Rate, STAB (its in the massive damage formula article, nice but a newbe reading an analysis who sees "STAB" will not find it), and many many more things as well as applications such as metagame analysis (which may be written by non badged members), and articles that are best worked on by many people (speed tiers, item locations pop to mind).

Maybe a wiki is not needed for these, but it seems like a good way to organize these pages, help non badged members contribute easily and quickly, with little need for intervention of badged members or site staff, once its set up at least. Which is the problem...

 

[Blue_Tornado]

Isn't typing what you're looking for at the search section at the top of the page simple enough? You can easily get to Pokemon pages and articles without too much of a hassle.

 

[RBG]

What exactly in the SCMS needs to be updated might I ask? The SCMS and Mediawiki have the same capabilities except for Talk Pages and categories. Everything that you type in mediawiki with its markup is changed to HTML, and we cut out that middle man by just putting it on the site in HTML.

Granted, a news archive would be nice, and we do have user run tourneys listed (click on the Tournaments link on the side to find them).

Also, when people Link to Bulbapedia, its usually for info that is out of our scope, such as where to find Pokemon and things like that. We have all the info we need about items on the site, and everything on the pokemon's page. What exactly is within the scope of knowledge that we cover that people have to go to Bulbapedia for?

 

[chaos]

I've never seen a Wiki system with the capabilities of the SCMS. (Namely, approving edits or performing arbitrary code on "cache") The SCMS probably does need a tune up, but for now I don't see any problem with it. I have plans for Smogon that can't be realized with an off-the-shelf solution, which I hope to implement after December (grad school apps are in!!!!)

However, I do agree that currently we are a bit disorganized. It isn't necessary to scrap a (in my opinion, superior) solution to deal with it though. Perhaps a project on reorganizing Smogon? I have my own thoughts.

 

[Zach]

i dont like the idea of everyone being able to edit the analyses

 

[Kachalski]

Sorry, I may have missed this somewhere, but what does SCMS stand for again?

 

[RBG]

Smogon Content Management System

Since this really is already in place and there is no need to change this, I think I'll close this.