Camera-wiki.org:Todo list

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Revision as of 01:55, 21 June 2012 by Steevithak (talk | contribs) (Project status: move to history page)
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Feel free to add whatever task you think should have priority.

High Priority Work

This is a list of things that must be done before we can relaunch and publicise the website. These are listed in roughly the chronological order in which they'll need to be done.

  • Remove references to camerapedia on the flickr page but still needs final site name
  • Add new site name where appropriate, Vox suggests standardizing on 'Camera-wiki' (capital C, hyphen, no TLD)
  • Add article count on main page. Use the NUMBEROFARTICLES tag: 9,787
  • Change the featured article for February. Voxphoto suggests this one (because most photo rights are clear) Vox didn't realize Konica had been featured in 2007, ignore
  • Find out which camerapedia admins are still with us and get them set up here
  • Select some new admins if needed
  • Write a new welcome page with the site's mission and acknowledgment of forking from Camerapedia ( rough draft by Vox but I don't know where/how to link)
  • We need a new name! (camera-wiki.org)
  • Change the site name in the config file from camerapedia.org to camera-wiki.org
    • community portal namespace is based on config file setting (portal-url in side nav)
    • footer link comes from config setting
    • title bar name comes from config setting
    • login screen name comes from config setting
    • Establish twitter account under new name Vox has two, @camerawiki and @camera_wiki
    • Establish FB page under new name
    • Rename camera wiki flickr group to new name
  • Set up web hosting account
  • establish new account procedures (install mediawiki captcha and auth extensions)
  • photos not CC licensed or authorized for use here must be removed
  • Set up Camera-Wiki Flickr account for hosting PD, CC, and donated images
  • Correct wording in footer to indicate text content is GFDL but not images
  • check backlinks ->old Camerapedia.org from other sites, and request links to us instead
  • work on a guidelines for community decision making and public disclosure
  • Set up a kickstarter project to raise money for hosting and non-profit org
  • Prepare PR info for Make, Slashdot, other high profile geek news sites
  • Send out PR notices

Mid term work

  • nightly backup script for website, blog, and DB
  • script to tweet daily new page and edit totals
script to tweet when a new page is created? is there a way to make sure a tweet only occurs of the page does not have a { { stub } } annotation? else we tweet mini pages that are pretty uninformative--Heritagefutures 18:44, 18 February 2011 (PST)
we only get 140 chars anyway, so it'll probably just be stats. Something like "4 new pages, 120 edits, 12 new users". I think it's more likely we'll publicize interesting new pages in the blog where a human can select only those that are reasonably complete and worthwhile. Steevithak 07:14, 19 February 2011 (PST)
Steve's current script generates one tweet a week, giving a count of the week's edits and new pages. Is there any strong desire for something more frequent? I think this item can be called completed.--Vox 09:10, 8 April 2011 (PDT)
  • Camera-Wiki.org Logo contest (good PR value)
  • Start non-profit filings to establish 501(c)(3) org to support the site going forward
  • Work on changing existing web references from camerapedia.org to our new name (hint: try a google search for "link:camerapedia.org -wikia -site:camerapedia.org" to find old inbound Camerapedia links)
Vox has been contacting bloggers and website owners with a brief message about the fork, and typically getting a positive response. Please help with this, whenever you notice sites on the web with outdated links to Camerapedia. --Vox 09:24, 8 April 2011 (PDT)
Completed?--Vox 09:10, 8 April 2011 (PDT)
  • set up protected page showing status of costs vs donations and thanking sponsors/contributors (Vox has rough beginning here.)
  • load-based job queue handler to run when site is inactive
  • need a more direct route from front page to a list of "how you can help items" (e.g. ToDo lists, article suggestions, donation info, etc.)
  • establish at least two offsite backup repositories (one is already working, need another)
  • reorg database (reduces "minor edit"s)
So far, this doesn't look possible. Trying to delete records of specific edits could corrupt the page history. Doesn't look like it would produce any performance benefits. If you don't want to see the minor edits, you can filter them out when viewing the recent edit log. Steevithak 12:13, 28 February 2011 (PST)
  • determine policy for local uploads
Yes, but only for admins. If photos of others are uploaded the rights owner must have agreed. File size limit: 1024x768 pixels, 500.000 Bytes. Of course correct attribution necessary. Modest use of that upload option should be the rule. Reason: Some very rare images or very basic explaining images could be copied from Flickr, and some new non-Flickr images could enrich our illustration portfolio. (U. Kulick 03:33, 17 February 2011 (PST))
I agree. I'd prefer to see us continue to use flickr for image storage. Hosting images here increases bandwidth costs for us. It would be cheaper just to pay the $20/year to get a camera-wiki pro flickr account and store the rare images there. Steevithak 18:25, 18 February 2011 (PST)
The best argument I've heard so far is the case of scanned documentation. Simple scanned documents like ads could go in the camerawiki flickr account but it might be good to have a place for larger public domain documents such as manuals, patents, book excerpts. Thoughts? Does Butkus accept contributed camera manual scans?
Note, we now have a "camerawiki" Flickr pro account. This is available to use for storing any images you don't wish to put on your personal Flickr accounts. Contact Vox or Steevithak if you'd like to move images there. --Vox 15:38, 20 April 2011 (PDT)
  • establish guidelines and templates for new articles. Steevithak 10:53, 28 March 2011 (PDT)
    • company
      • manufacturer
      • distributor
    • camera (3 parts? generic + analog/digital + type-specific)
    • lens
    • film
    • definition/glossary item
    • biographies (e.g. photographers, inventors)
    • other article types?
  • Create new-user-greeting-template (and auto-insertion script?)
A draft of a welcome message was offered by Zuleika. If other admins would like to write one in their own style, feel free. --Vox 15:46, 20 April 2011 (PDT)
  • Document certain site-maintenance procedures so all editors are able to help: How to clean up categories; How to merge "image-by" pages when more than one has been generated for a Flickr user; etc.
  • change format of ~~~~ to [[User:JoeBloggs]] ([[User talk:JoeBloggs|talk]]) [timestamp]
  • "Project Status" section below doesn't really belong on the ToDo list - maybe move to about or history page?
  • Fix the GFDL pages, the main GFDL page shows an old version of the license, while the correct license is shown on the weirdly named Camera_wiki:_GNU_Free_Documentation_License/default (need to remove the "/default" and the superfluous leading space character from the name or just move the correct license text from the badly named page to the correctly named page).
  • Create an image importing tool based on the Flickr API, which would automatically extract the correct image URLs, attribution, and licensing. Add feature requests to Image template, below.

Long term work

  • Document the procedure for selecting, creating, and archiving featured articles
  • Document hardware and software administration duties and procedures
  • Document wiki admin procedures
  • Improve site friendliness to newbies without Wiki experience--e.g. by noting well-organized sample articles, encouraging copying syntax from these
  • Improve consistency between pages, e.g. image size & placement; section breaks. Want to add eye appeal for new visitors.

Image template

Feature list for improved Flickr-image template:

  • use valid XHTML div-based layout without tables (done (with template-name postfix "_xhtml_1.0_strict", but at least one disadvantage left compared to valid XHTML (transitional/MediaWiki compatible) table based solution)
  • avoid inline styles, add needed classes to the style sheet
  • image template should create plural cat names (e.g. "Images by..." instead of "Image by...")
  • image categories need grammar correction (e.g. "more image BY..." rather than "images OF...") (this fixed now)
  • improve image rights templates to match specific CC license types and use standard CC logos
  • add hooks for an AJAX tool to auto-populate the template from flickr API
  • new image categories should be derived from a template and link to a category help page
  • possible to use MW bot to auto-create new categories each night?
  • check for improvements/corrections in skin.js (e.g. Monobook.js , Vector.js )
  • must work transparently with older usages (e.g. missing image_rights or other fields)
  • handle common misspellings or alternate spellings (e.g. centre vs center, by vs with permission, etc.)
  • use non-strict XHTML br with a space (e.g. <br />)
  • permit abbreviations in image_rights field: wp for "with permission" nc for "non commercial" (fixed)
  • permit attribution to Flickr ID's which include characters <, {, [ etc. which currently cause an error

Ongoing Maintenance

This is a list of maintenance items that any admins can check when they want to help out.

  • Check our popular pages to be sure they are in a good state: no broken image links, mangled phrasing, chaotic image layout.
  • Create helpful redirects — if a page seems well-written, stable, and named appropriately, it can be helpful to our visitors to have multiple redirects to it. These might included checking how a model name appears on a camera, then making sure all variants of spacing, capitalization, and word order will redirect to the proper page. Wiki articles which use accented characters in their page titles should generally have redirects using the plain forms of those letters too. Commonly-used name shortenings, nicknames or collector shorthand may be appropriate for redirects in some cases. (Example: "Fuji" for models actually engraved Fujica or Fujifilm.)
  • Remove double redirects - from time to time a page will be redirected more than once and sometimes gets redirected back to itself, created an endless loop. If you find one of these, delete the redirect but preserve the page using the most appropriate name. To find double redirects, check Special:DoubleRedirects
  • Check unpatrolled edits for vandalism, spam, or other problems. When you view the recent changes log, any edits that have not been patrolled and approved by an admin are marked with a red exclamation point. Check these edits by clicking the "diff" link to see what was changed. If the edit is spam or vandalism, revert the edit and take appropriate action to block the user. If the edit is acceptable, check to see if you need to make any improvements or corrections. To find the list of recent changes, check Special:RecentChanges
  • Merge duplicate photographer/Flickr-user names - The wiki's Flickr-image template (and image-author template) both take the photographer's name and add the page to a hidden image-by category with that name. The photo byline then links to a category page which allows you to see other wiki photos from this photographer, and all their contributions to our photo pool. The exact name entered into these templates creates the category name, whether it is their real name (preferred) or their Flickr account name. In some cases, slight differences in spelling, case, or punctuation of the name create unintentional duplicate categories. If you spot one of these, try to merge the categories using the most appropriate name. (Check this list to see the names already in use—note that lowercase names follow uppercase ones—and if possible use the photographer's real name, capitalized normally, unless another attribution already has many pages in its category.
    • Also create image-by (Flickr user) category pages when someone on the same list has contributed photos used in several of our pages. View the source of some other completed image-by category pages to see the correct format. Opening a redlinked photographer page will display some placeholder text in the edit window, but this still requires copying and pasting of their Flickr account URLs.
  • Remove unauthorized images - Occasional unauthorized image uses still exist throughout the wiki. In some cases these were images inherited from our previous incarnation as Camerapedia and in others they may be new images added by editors who didn't understand or check copyright status of the image. If you find an image like this, in many cases you can search our Flickr pool for a replacement, or search all of Flickr's CC-licensed images. The wiki page Problem Photos was our original list of unconfirmed images, and it has more discussion of the problem (but the list itself proved to be incomplete and is no longer maintained).
  • Find and correct invalid XHTML - many pages in camera-wiki.org have invalid XHTML markup. Most is minor but it still needs to be fixed. A typical example is converting <br> to <br/>. This job is best done by someone familiar with HTML/XHTML markup who knows how to use the W3C validator for testing. If you find invalid markup that seems to be related to the skin or is generated directly by MediaWiki, let steevithak know and he'll try to track down the cause and either fix it or file a bug report upstream. Note that XHTML(Strict) proved to be useless worry, while XHTML 1.0 Transitional is (not yet exactly) the standard of what MediaWiki generates as HTML frames around our pages. Reaching further than that basic XHTML recommendation might cause just inconvenience and no positive effect. Better look forward for HTML5 which seems to become future base of MediaWiki software. The same W3C validator can test HTML5 compatibility.
  • Connect orphaned pages - sometimes an editor creates a new page but forgets to link it into the wiki, when this happens, the page is known as an "orphaned" page and is generally not accessible or findable by users. Orphaned pages are automatically detected and added to the orphaned pages list. Check the list, pick a page, determine where it should be linked from or if it needs to be removed.
  • Standardize formatting — we don't want Camera-wiki.org to seem sloppy and unprofessional. Therefore, make edits to improve consistency between pages, in areas like:
    • Captions and article subheads should have an initial capital letter; lowercase thereafter (except proper names)
    • External links should be in the long form [http://www.somesite.org/cameras/pages/somepagetitle.html Some Page Title] at Joe Blow's [http://www.somesite.org/cameras/ Some Site].
    • In pages where captions are a mix of italics and standard, take captions out of italics, to match what our Flickr-image template generates
    • Add the template {{image author|photographer name}} to pages where attributions are not inside a Flickr-image template, to generate the image-by category link.
    • Begin an image-by category page when you notice a photographer credit is redlinked. This is particularly important for photographers who have several photos used in the wiki (check this list) or who have contributed many photos to our Flickr pool. But be certain the photographer is not already being credited under a variant name (again, check the list—including lowercase names, which follow uppercase in that sorting).
    • When footnotes cite a McKeown page number, please confirm that this is from the 12th edition (issued 2004); and switch to the template {{McKeown12}} plus the page number. Page numbering will be different in other editions; there are rumors that a 13th edition is coming.
    • Make sure every camera article page includes a wiki-link back to its manufacturer page; and (if appropriate) to its close "sisters" and rebranded versions.
  • Improve categorization — [[Category:Some Category]] tags have been added very inconsistently. You can help by insuring that cameras are categorized by the narrowest applicable camera-type category; by country (if not Japan or Germany); and in the most useful alphabetical sort order. The wiki lacks a consistent category "watchdog" and we would appreciate someone taking that role.
  • Thank photo contributors — When a Flickr image is (validly) placed in a wiki article, it is good form to leave a thank-you note in the photo page's comments, linking to the wiki page. This not only encourages more photo contributions, it gives the photographer one last reminder of what use they've permitted. And better still, it spreads awareness of our project to other camera-admirers who may stumble onto that photo.

Ways to help expand & maintain Camera-wiki.org

  • Check the Recent edits page to learn what kinds of tasks other editors are working on. By clicking "diff," you can see examples of the kinds of contributions or housekeeping edits that may be useful.
  • We have a special page that lists short pages, Special:ShortPages; or see our Category:stub, to find articles that could use expansion. It's especially useful to write about cameras you have in your hands, or have good sources about (vintage magazines, a copy of the manual, etc.)
  • There's also a MediaWiki-generated list of "wanted" pages: Special:WantedPages. The numbers in parentheses beside the topic names show how often an unwritten page is "redlinked" from other pages within the wiki.
  • Look at the Ongoing Maintenance section above, and see if you feel comfortable taking on one of those items.


Image credits

All the images displayed in the site should be tagged with the proper "image rights" template (see the help page on adding images). All the pictures should be credited to their taker unless it was explicitly requested to post his/her image anonymously.

Image mining

Why linking to other sites? Much more fun it is to view through our camera-wiki.org pool on Flickr. Many images are still unused in articles.

Example of an article derived from image mining: V. P. Twin . This camera image was found by searching for the keyword "British". There are further cameras under this keyword in our Flickr Pool which deserve an article here. Not only because we need as many British cameras as possible covered to reach UK readers, and last not least native English speaking writers for this camera wiki. A lever to reach more U.S. readers would be to use the search keyword "Kodak". There are many precious images of pearls of American camera production which are still unused in wiki articles. Don't fear to write too much about cameras from the giants of camera business. Kodak's big role seems to be in the past, its super-selling cameras have become historical cameras which deserve unbiassed covering in a camera encyclopedia.

Missing/incomplete articles ...

This section has not been updated lately--Vox 11:25, 30 August 2011 (PDT)


These articles are still missing ( U. Kulick Dec 27th 2008 )

... about Cameras

...about camera parts and accessories

  • Rollex rollfilm back (just begun)

...about People

Maybe there are other women or men who deserve an original article in this wiki, maybe Heinrich Ernemann, the brothers Lumière, Dr. Edwin Land and a handful further photographers who should appear in the category "famous photographers".

Articles which are missing no more

Thanks to all here several "missing articles" lost their "missing" status:

Article categories needing more input

Unsatisfactory popular pages

Basic articles like Camera are still in an intermediate state.

These pages are unsatisfactory but attract many hits, as you can see in the list of popular pages. They will harm this wiki's image.

Page Number of views Current version
Kodak 71,172 incomplete list of models, especially in the Autographic segment
Canon 70,261 more intro and history, please
Lens 69,027 info about coma and curvature of field is missing
Nikon 56,999 a little more info
Pentax 51,593 the company history stops around 1960
Voigtländer 49,988 intro too short
Zeiss Ikon 44,406 Ikonta article incomplete
Rolleiflex 40,560 only contains a list of models
Canon EOS 20D 33,946 no description, links only, many of them are self-promotional
Pentacon 29,075 maybe some more info
Chinon 21,323 no text about first 50 years (done)
Canon EOS 300D 20,437 almost no description, links only, many of them are self-promotional
Nikon D70 20,226 no description, links only, many of them are self-promotional

Miscellanea

Please reword Template:Delete, which now asks Camerapedia administrators to delete articles. Zuleika 01:14, 3 April 2011 (PDT)

Please delete Chronology, which I accidentally created when intending to create Category:Chronology. Zuleika 01:38, 5 April 2011 (PDT)

Please delete Category:Year and Category:Calendrical, now respectively superseded by Category:Individual years and Category:Chronology. Zuleika 01:38, 5 April 2011 (PDT)

All done. --Vox 19:44, 5 April 2011 (PDT)
Thank you, Vox. Zuleika 22:07, 5 April 2011 (PDT)

Please delete Help:Markup reference/Editnotice, which I created in an attempt to nudge my successors toward editing Help:Markup reference scrupulously. (You can see what I had in mind if you read Wikipedia:Editnotice.) Or, better, do whatever's necessary to activate this, so that Help:Markup reference/Editnotice works as intended. Zuleika 18:03, 4 May 2011 (PDT)

Deleted. -- Hoarier 16:41, 14 May 2011 (PDT)

Please edit shared.css so that <code class="standout"> (or some other name for this class) has the additional specification "padding:1pt; border:1pt dotted #006;", or, more radically, that <code> itself (which seems little used elsewhere) has this additional specification. The reason I ask is that by itself <code> is now insufficiently distinctive and that I've therefore felt compelled to add a cumbersome style–value pair again and again within Help:Markup reference, resulting in bulky and fragile wikitext. (Incidentally, "padding:1pt; border:1pt dotted #006;" did not come after lengthy thought or experimentation; I am open to suggestions for its improvement.) Zuleika 18:03, 4 May 2011 (PDT)