Camera-wiki.org:Community discussions
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Old site discussions, see Camerapedia.org:Community Discussions
Old site, wikia takeover discussions, see Camerapedia.org:Community Discussions/Future of Camerapedia and Camerapedia.org:Community Discussions/A New Home for Camerapedia
Discussions
Intro
Add your discussion topics here. Give each topic a header like this intro's header ===Intro===
Image Uses
Going forward, I feel there are a couple of areas where Camerawiki could use some refinement. The first is pushing for a more standardized way to embed images in pages--always including the essentials of a link back to the source, identifying the contributor, and stating the license terms. The first is mandatory to use Flickr-hosted images in a way consistent with their terms of service.
Another area needing work is to aim for greater visual consistency between pages, which currently can be a bit chaotic. There's no standard for the image dimensions used, so some pages have excessively tiny thumbnails. The wiki markup syntax is not the most intuitive (not to me, anyway) when it comes to understanding how photos align or how text wraps, and so odd collisions with text often occur. I'd like to work with folks more familiar with the wiki markup language to define some "best practices" for nicer-looking pages. --Vox 19:17, 30 January 2011 (CST)
- chaotic answer: At the moment the visual inconsitency is just a dusadvantage for wikia's skinned page view. Thumbnail images are sometimes used for good reasons. On some pages they are just decoration of camera type lists. In some of these pages they can be replaced by "small" variants instead of thumbnail. There are helpful buttons over the editor window to get some wiki syntax generated. Steevithak already began to enhance the Flickr_image template. I think about a second version for uploaded Flickr image copies.U. kulick 19:45, 30 January 2011 (CST)
- Since we have one obvious advantage over Wikia (less page clutter), it would be nice to capitalize on that by encouraging nice clean, open layouts. I'm concerned that we need to be welcoming to contributors with great camera knowledge, but little patience for wrestling with markup syntax to lay out pages neatly. Even a template that e.g. automatically forms two columns, (text left, images/captions right) would smooth out the appearance of many pages. --Vox 23:03, 30 January 2011 (CST)
- Actually, the wiki version of adding images and sizing them is quite easy, once you get used to it. It's much more flexible for getting an image in a particular place in an article, the exact size it needs to be relative to it's location in the article. Adding images as links from Flickr can be constrictive at times - you can't adjust the size easily. I'm hesitant to change an image to a different size because it would mean finding the original contributor's page and choosing a size that would be better than the original found on the wiki. One question semi-related to images: Are we going for images that represent the camera the best or just with images that are uploaded first? I've seen a couple images that could be replaced with better representations of that model, but am also hesitant to change anything. I've seen people on other wikis get into battles over having their photographs replaced. HaarFager 14:42, 8 February 2011 (PST)
- If you would care to mock up some dummy pages with examples of "best practices" for laying out text and images, perhaps that could be a rallying point for making gradual improvements throughout Camera-wiki. The only thing to be aware of is the Template:Flickr image, because we're attempting to enforce more consistency in image attribution and rights clarity.
- In my case as a total beginner, page layouts tended to be the result of random thrashing because I didn't understand the markup, and I expect that will be true for many prospective contributors who might be camera experts, but new to wikis.
- For photo replacements, I agree with you that in many cases authors just grabbed what was in the Camerapedia pool as of that date, when much better images might be available. My preference would always be to replace images in the event we can get 1) plain light backgrounds; 2) camera examples in better & more original condition; 3) sharper images without wacky HDR, sepia, or Hipstamatic processing.
Vox Edits
I have been going through some of the Editing Guidelines pages, rewriting a few explanations with the hope of making them clearer to wiki newbies. The goal is to encourage people who are not experienced with wiki markup to join us, by offering them more explanations and hand-holding as they begin. I am the guinea pig for this, because I'm mostly trying to clarify issues that I found a bit confusing myself at first. However I encourage all your more wiki-savvy editors to re-check my edits, to make sure I have not introduced errors. --Vox 22:47, 1 February 2011 (CST)
Suggestion
I would like to suggest that a "create new page" link be added to the left in the "Navigation" column. It would make it much easier for new users to add a new camera that doesn't already have a page created. Plus, it speeds up the process for experienced users as well. Pages can be created without a link there, but newbies wouldn't know where to find this information or even if it's listed in the help section somewhere. HaarFager 14:46, 8 February 2011 (PST)
- I think that's a good suggestion. I'm the guinea pig for "how do newbies perceive this site," and I think that would be much clearer. It could even be helpful for a page to open with a few standard elements pre-filled, such as a placeholder for one main image, links and notes sections at the foot, etc. Naturally the veterans would understand everything could be changed but it would keep beginner pages to a certain minimal standard of clarity and consistency.
- That's an excellent suggestion about having some pre-filled areas already on the blank page form. That's the way we do it over on the Hot Wheels Wiki and it helps new users immensely. Yes, veterans would understand that a typical blank form page for a new camera article could be made blank quite easily if they're creating another kind of page, so having the standard blank page form be set for new camera articles would be the best basic form you coule go for. I'll try to work up one and post a link to it in this section. HaarFager 16:08, 8 February 2011 (PST)
- I suggest something simple like this, pretty basic for a page, but a lot of pages don't have much information and this template can be expanded quite easily: New Camera Page TemplateHaarFager 16:32, 8 February 2011 (PST)
- That's a great start. I'm not sure the block of specs needs to be at the beginning--maybe invite some comment from the other admins?
- I figured that if it was kept at the beginning, people would be able to find it uniformly across every page. If it were left to the user and how much information they were adding about that particular camera, this information might wind up anywhere. I feel that's the kind of important information about the camera that people will be wanting to know about anyway. It's the same reason that the navigation bar at the top left of this page can be found in that same area on every page. There's a good reason why it's locked there. HaarFager 20:41, 8 February 2011 (PST)
- Hey, Vox, you can sign your comments in a wiki discussion by appending four tildes (~~~~) to your comment. That will put in your name and a time stamp so we know who said what and when.
Steevithak 21:07, 8 February 2011 (PST)
- Hey, Vox, you can sign your comments in a wiki discussion by appending four tildes (~~~~) to your comment. That will put in your name and a time stamp so we know who said what and when.
