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Author Topic: UQM wiki database  (Read 5422 times)
meep-eep
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UQM wiki database
« on: August 14, 2004, 05:44:21 am »

I've started on what is to become the official The Ur-Quan Masters wiki server. For those who don't know what I mean by "wiki", I refer you to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiki. Basically it's a collaborative website.

It's meant for everything relating to UQM and the UQM universe, including FAQs, reference information, and walkthroughs.

Most of this information is available elsewhere, but by putting it in wiki form, it should be possible to create a single easy to access information source, cross-referenced with hyperlinks, and always up-to-date.
A lot of information can be found on the UQM boards, but it's not very easy to retrieve it in between the irrelevant and obsolete postings. Such information is much better at place on a Wiki site.
For instance, I intend to put my Star Control II facts up there.

I have set up the wiki server at http://uqm.stack.nl/wiki/, but before we can really get started, there are two matters that need to be resolved. It needs a name and a license.

For the name, we currently have the following possibilities:
  • Ultronomicon, named after the Ultron, the mental amplifier of the Star Control II game, and a variation on the "Necronomicon", the "book of the dead". Depending on how you split up the word, it would mean something like "Book of Ultron knowledge" (but also "Image of Ultron law"). An alternative spelling that has been suggested is "Ultronomycon", which adds a reference to the Mycon, but makes less sense in meaning. It also can be confusing as the pronunciation does not match the spelling.
  • Melnorme Databank, refering to the Melnorme as a source of information. A small problem here is that the Melnorme explicitely charge for information, while we don't.
    I'd like to hear what you think, and any other suggestions you may have. Any name would have to be relatively small, so it will be easy to refer to it.

    A more serious issue is the license. We would need something that would most stimulate people to contribute, and allows us to use the material in manual texts.
    Some options:
  • The GNU General Public License. It's really meant for code, but it can be applied to documentation too. However, GNU itself advises advises against this.
  • The GNU Free Documentation License. Wikipedia itself uses this. It's meant for documentation, but it appearantly has its problems.
  • A creative commons license. There's much choice here. Also, it's got both a legalese form and a translation for normal persons. See here for some discussion on the use of this license for wikis.
  • Public domain. Everyone can do with it what he wants.
  • Multiple licenses, giving the user the choice.
    So, what do you think?

« Last Edit: August 14, 2004, 05:48:02 am by meep-eep » Logged

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Re: UQM wiki database
« Reply #1 on: August 14, 2004, 06:14:52 am »

Well, I'm not sure. This won't cross over work I'm already doing on my guide, will it? Although I've made sections for these, here's what I have no intention of doing on my own:
  • An appendix of all the species, ships, and items.
  • A planet list, graph, or what have you.
  • Detailed melee strategy other than what you'll bump into during the story game.
  • Trivia. Wouldn't dream of it.

What I am working on is becoming rather extensive and you might want to take a gander at it if you're going to be making this big wiki thing.
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Re: UQM wiki database
« Reply #2 on: August 14, 2004, 10:53:55 am »

As a colaborative site, it has the potential to be much broader than any other single source.

The main reason for me to start this was to have a place to put all the stuff which people ask now and then on the forums, but not frequently enough to warrant a place in the FAQ list. I usually end up spending some time searching through the old postings for a reply I written earlier.
Also, it would be a nice a place to put all the FAQs we have or want, like the project FAQ, the technical issues FAQ, a gameplay FAQ, a developers FAQ, etc.
It would much easier to keep it up-to-date, as everyone can update it. It's also much easier to start writing about something. If you would publish a FAQ or a guide or something as a separate file, you'll usually make the whole thing, and then publish it. In wiki form, you can do it in small steps, and others can help.

Then, there is the use as an encyclopedia of UQM related stuff. There are several sites around the web which discuss a specific subject, like ship statistics, or race info. Often these sites are incomplete and are not being actively worked on. Having such information in wiki form will give people the chance to improve it themselves, and it can be heavilly hyperlinked to other topics.

To get back to your question how this will overlap with what you're doing, it depends on what exactly is the extent of your work.
In theory, a "newbie-friendly walkthrough" is something that could have a place on a site like what I'm proposing. In practice it all depends on what people are contributing. If for some separate topic a good external source exists, I don't expect anyone will bother redoing that work, and the wiki will just contain a link to that external source.

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Re: UQM wiki database
« Reply #3 on: August 14, 2004, 05:33:54 pm »

Quote

Some options:
  • The GNU General Public License. It's really meant for code, but it can be applied to documentation too. However, GNU itself advises advises against this.
  • The GNU Free Documentation License. Wikipedia itself uses this. It's meant for documentation, but it appearantly has its problems.
  • A creative commons license. There's much choice here. Also, it's got both a legalese form and a translation for normal persons. See here for some discussion on the use of this license for wikis.
  • Public domain. Everyone can do with it what he wants.
  • Multiple licenses, giving the user the choice.
    So, what do you think?


I'd say the creative commons or the public domain. It leaves you with least troubles, besides I don't think it's fair to take something that isn't fully yours in the first place.
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Re: UQM wiki database
« Reply #4 on: August 14, 2004, 05:51:42 pm »

Thanks for the links.  Those actually help me on one of my concerns myself in software / manual development.

But I should point out that the Wiki link is NOT Internet Explorer (SP2) compatible, assuming it's supposed to load a page.
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Re: UQM wiki database
« Reply #5 on: August 15, 2004, 01:50:22 am »

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But I should point out that the Wiki link is NOT Internet Explorer (SP2) compatible, assuming it's supposed to load a page.

Have you considered upgrading to a better browser?  Wink

Re: the name, I think "Ultronomicon" is quite clever, and if we're taking votes, my ballot is cast in its favour.

Re: copyright issues, I'm pretty sure that the only issues of any concern are "ownership of articles", and ability for the UQM project to redistribute articles (or pieces thereof) as a game manual.  Since this project is global in scope, I'm pretty sure standard U.S. copyright law cannot be assumed, but something along the lines of "you own what you write, other people own what they write, and everyone grants the UQM project implicit rights to redistribute/modify all contributed works" seems to srike a nice balance between "author's rights" and "utility for the project"  What "extra goodies" do the GPL, GFDL, and CC licenses bring to the table as far as others here are concerned?
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Re: UQM wiki database
« Reply #6 on: August 15, 2004, 01:52:54 am »

I did.  Actually Mozilla isn't any better.  But even so you have to realize what most people no doubt are and will be running, and that is Internet Explorer.  The site will go nowhere as long as it's confined to .1 of 1% of market share.

Incidentally, the link doesn't work with IE 6 SP1 either.

Quote

Have you considered upgrading to a better browser?  Wink

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Re: UQM wiki database
« Reply #7 on: August 15, 2004, 03:31:01 am »

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I'd say the creative commons or the public domain. It leaves you with least troubles,

If you look at that page I linked to you'll see that also creative commons has its problems. And creative commons has several license types. Which one would you want?

Quote
besides I don't think it's fair to take something that isn't fully yours in the first place.

I don't understand. Who would be taking what? And how would that be any different with the other licenses?


Let me ask a different question. What would people here want to require of someone using your contribution to a wiki? Or what do you explicitely not want to be a condition for usage?
- that it is used for non-commercial purposes only
- that if someone uses it, he/she must credit the source (which I think in theory would mean just a reference to the wiki database)
- that if someone uses it in something larger, he must make that larger work available under similar conditions

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Re: UQM wiki database
« Reply #8 on: August 15, 2004, 03:35:06 am »

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But I should point out that the Wiki link is NOT Internet Explorer (SP2) compatible, assuming it's supposed to load a page.

That is strange. It appears that IE chokes on an empty document (for the redirect) when gzip is used for content encoding.
I'll look into working around this bug.
Going directly to http://uqm.stack.nl/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page should work anyhow.
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Re: UQM wiki database
« Reply #9 on: August 15, 2004, 04:03:18 am »

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Have you considered upgrading to a better browser?  Wink

Hey! Cut that out. No trolling in my thread Smiley
Besides, Opera is better Grin.

Quote
Re: copyright issues, I'm pretty sure that the only issues of any concern are "ownership of articles", and ability for the UQM project to redistribute articles (or pieces thereof) as a game manual.  Since this project is global in scope, I'm pretty sure standard U.S. copyright law cannot be assumed, but something along the lines of "you own what you write, other people own what they write, and everyone grants the UQM project implicit rights to redistribute/modify all contributed works" seems to srike a nice balance between "author's rights" and "utility for the project"

I personally think that others should also be allowed to use derived content for their manuals and such.

Quote
What "extra goodies" do the GPL, GFDL, and CC licenses bring to the table as far as others here are concerned?

Limitations to usage. See what I said in my response to Ivan Ivanov.

« Last Edit: August 15, 2004, 04:04:02 am by meep-eep » Logged

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Re: UQM wiki database
« Reply #10 on: August 15, 2004, 04:44:24 am »

Quote

That is strange. It appears that IE chokes on an empty document (for the redirect) when gzip is used for content encoding.
I'll look into working around this bug.
Going directly to http://uqm.stack.nl/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page should work anyhow.

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Re: UQM wiki database
« Reply #11 on: August 15, 2004, 01:15:11 pm »

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I don't understand. Who would be taking what? And how would that be any different with the other licenses?


I meant all the thou shalt not take my work without my blessing licenses. Altough I must admit I'm familiar with all the licenses you've shown, I know the CC license a litlle and it seemed ok.

Quote
Let me ask a different question. What would people here want to require of someone using your contribution to a wiki? Or what do you explicitely not want to be a condition for usage?
- that it is used for non-commercial purposes only
- that if someone uses it, he/she must credit the source (which I think in theory would mean just a reference to the wiki database)
- that if someone uses it in something larger, he must make that larger work available under similar conditions


#1 and #2 are fine. I don't know about #3, the CC site says it's not under similiar conditions, but under identical conditions, this wouldn't be fair, as the contribution from wiki would only be a part of a much larger work.
I'm not sure if I'm right, but If you wanted to distribute stuff from wiki as a manual to UQM, wouldn't UQM need to be under the very same license? That would cause other problems, like what would happen to things that are a part of UQM but none of us have rights to (namely the content, if I remember correctly)?
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Re: UQM wiki database
« Reply #12 on: August 15, 2004, 01:50:09 pm »

"Ultron" itself comes from a word meaning "beyond", perhaps in reference to the Ultron's mind-expanding and enhance capabilities. So Ultronomicon might mean something like "Book of Knowledge of Things Beyond", which is appropriate for a sci-fi database. Smiley
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Re: UQM wiki database
« Reply #13 on: August 15, 2004, 04:51:56 pm »

Just noticed that my text didn't get posted in this one for some reason.  Basically I was just saying that that version of the link works just fine.

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Re: UQM wiki database
« Reply #14 on: August 15, 2004, 08:39:44 pm »

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#1 and #2 are fine. I don't know about #3, the CC site says it's not under similiar conditions, but under identical conditions, this wouldn't be fair, as the contribution from wiki would only be a part of a much larger work.

You say #1 and #2 are fine. But would they essantial, or would it be fine too for you without them?

Quote
I'm not sure if I'm right, but If you wanted to distribute stuff from wiki as a manual to UQM, wouldn't UQM need to be under the very same license? That would cause other problems, like what would happen to things that are a part of UQM but none of us have rights to (namely the content, if I remember correctly)?

I don't think the manual would need to have the same license. It's not a derivative work of the code.
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