Misc
Ake Vader  /  12 Jul 2007, 21:21
QW wiki reaches 5,000 entries
Today the Wiki on QWDrama reached its 5,000th post. This is something that the Wiki crew have looked forward to, hence i thought i'd have a quick chat with Soma wiki, who is one of the main contributors to this project.
The popularity of the Quakeworld wiki has surged a bit and today the 5000th entry was added. The wiki is a brilliant source if you are looking for fresh as well as old information. It is continously being updated by some of the ~300 users that have registered and the strength of a wiki is that anyone can volunteer and add content to it. It doesn't matter if you don't know everything that happened back in 1999 wiki, but perhaps you know something about it that could be added. Many small additions makes for a solid whole picture.

One of the most frequent contributors to the wiki is Soma wiki who has put some hard work into the wiki. I got a concrete sign of this when i was about to ask him some questions for this little article. As a reply i got something along the lines of:

Soma wrote:
"...I can't answer them right now though, i'm currently adding all the NQR2 achievements to the player profiles and i'm hunting down some russians to give me info on players. All i need to add are some KOFF wiki players and some AMD wiki players and i got NQR2 wiki all covered for every player that was in a top16 clan. "

This is quite hardcore and you realize that some serious efforts are put into the history archive over at wiki.qwdrama.com by some people when you read it. Anyway, he spared a few minutes for me later on and answered a few quickies on the state of the wiki (and the state of a wikiee?) on the 5,000th entry anniversary. Enjoy the few questions and answers below.

Åke Vader vs Soma wrote:
So, 5000 entries! Do you consider this a success or could the amount of contributions have been bigger by this time?

Well when you're talking about a project like a Wiki there's no upper bound as to how many contributers or contributions you can have. I'm not gonna say "it's all good!" when I know there are countless people out there that have heard of the Wiki but never even had a look at it, or they've heard of it and don't care. A lot of the sites we can/could snatch information from are down and/or outdated. That aside, browsing only gets so you far; Most of the information we need is nowhere but in people's heads.
But don't get me wrong, I'm not really bitter about since I can't blame people for wanting to devote their free time to other things than the Wiki. Bottom line: The more the merrier, but what/who we got for now is a pretty good start. 5000 is more than the official Swahili language Wikipedia. Up yours, Kenya!

Have there emerged any problems since the start of the wiki, perhaps concerning the increasing amount of contributors and contributions?

As I already pointed out in my answer to your first question, I'm more than happy about every new contributor we get, so I'm not gonna complain about the small issues that arise from the increase in contributions/contributors. Of course there are some minor issues like when among other things an unexperienced user adds a clan and lists Player XY in the roster but doesn't notice that there's already another player with that name (link from the roster will end up on the wrong entry), but that's just a formality. I'd rather see a new entry that isn't perfect or complete than no entry at all.

When working on the wiki i assume you have a core of users who do most of the changes. Has there been any natural (or conscious) division of different parts of the wiki (tournaments, players, clients etc) or is it free for all?

There's no real division when it comes to 'who does what' on the Wiki. Naturally everyone has their 'favourite fields' (UK contributors prefer adding UK players/clans, Swedes prefer adding Swedish players/clans, etc), but all in all everyone is free to contribute to any article he/she wants.

Does the wiki business get on your mind when you are as dedicated as some of you are? For example, if someone starts a new tournament, do you immediately feel an urge to document it properly so you don't have to do it later?

Yeah I guess that kinda applies. Adding a tournament or the respective results to the Wiki is always easiest when the tournament is still underway or has only recently ended. The info is still fresh and on everyone's mind, the dedicated websites are still up and all dates for everything are known. The sooner you do it, the less work it will end up being.

So, 5,000 entries...when will we see 10,000?

That's a very good question. It would actually be really easy to get 10,000 entries by just adding player profiles which is often just copy-paste (and it's tempting!), but you have to keep an eye on the quantity/quality balance too.
Right now I'm hoping for more contributors, especially for those parts that we have very little info on (North American QW, South American QW, Southern European QW, etc). Lately we've reached a peak of activity with a ton of great contributions so I'm hoping it won't be that long until we've reached 10,000.

One last question - what's your favourite wiki entry so far and what's your own contribution that you are most proud of?

My favourite Wiki entries would probably be those evolving around the NQR wiki tournaments. Gotta love all the info and effort Purity wiki put into those. It's great to have all the compact information from tourneys before I got into QW, with screenshots and everything. Love.
The contribution I am most proud of is probably that of the recently held "Ownage wiki" duel tournament. All info, important results and links to demos on one page. I think I did a good job on that one.

When browsing it, i see that you certainly did! Thanks for your time, and good luck with the wiki business in the future!

Thanks for writing about it.

After this quick chat i must say i agree with Soma on all points he makes. It would be especially interesting to know more about Quakeworld on the other continents besides Europe. I urge you all, whatever nation you're from, to give the Wiki a chance and add a thing or two. The least the active players of you can do is to fill in your own profile, and maybe info on the current clan you're in. It doesn't have to be 8,000 word essays you know, just a little something so we can keep track of players, clans, tournaments, tools, websites e.t.c.

It's a huge one man job, but if we are a few hundred, the burden lightens a lot. I made my own duty wiki today, now be a good boy or girl and do the same!
Comments
2007-07-12, 21:37
Lame why give Soma the German flag :[?
2007-07-12, 21:41
Because i'm stupid. Fixed now.
2007-07-12, 21:54
Dutch for the win! Pretty awesome to see many thing documented
2007-07-12, 21:58
and Zomg I can speak some Swahili!!!! Jebo!!!!
2007-07-12, 22:22
It dosent seem like many people know of the wiki, lets hope that changes in the near future. /part
2007-07-13, 11:19
gj soma!
2007-07-13, 18:19
Excellent job! Grats on the 5.000 articles
2007-07-26, 14:58
Because He captured the flag, idiot!
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