Hydrogenaudio Forums > Ideas for organization...

Hydrogenaudio Forums > Knowledgebase Project > Wiki Discussion

Dibrom

Sep 6 2003, 05:48

Post here your thoughts on how the wiki should be organized initially.

For example, what sort of major categories should we emphasize on the index page?

lexor

Sep 6 2003, 06:44

How about we'll start building the knowledge base by explaining to less educated, "what is Wiki?". I presonally never heard the word before

Mac

Sep 6 2003, 07:53

CODE

teetee

Sep 6 2003, 10:12

As the foobar2000 wiki is separate to the Hydrogenaudio wiki does that mean that links in the foobar2000 wiki will not go to the links in Hydrogenaudio wiki?

What I mean is, if I'm writing in the foobar2000 wiki and I reference (for example) ABX, and ABX has been written about in the HA wiki glossary, will the reference automatically link to that ABX section or do I need to do something explicit?

Jan S.

Sep 6 2003, 13:35

QUOTE(teetee @ Sep 6 2003, 06:12 PM)

You have to do this (from HA wiki to foobar2000 wiki):

CODE

foobar2000FAQ_

.. _foobar2000FAQ: ../foobar2000/FrequentlyAskedQuestions

mekon21

Sep 6 2003, 16:26

As well as the "introduction" and "advanced" catagories that mac has included in his well executed breakdown, why not just keep the other major catagories much the same as the forum catagories.

General Info, AAC, MP3, MPC, Ogg Vorbis, Lossless, Other Codecs, CD-R/ Ripping, and Audio Hardware.

Keep all the information and links specific to a codec within it's own tree, people are used to going to these catagories in the forum and it also highlights the specific area of interest to whomever is looking for it on the index page. Keep it simple

Jan S.

Sep 7 2003, 14:35

you can link to other wikis like this:

Link to foobar wiki:

CODE

FoobarWiki

Link to page at foobar wiki:

CODE

FoobarWiki:FrequentlyAskedQuestions

We can link to audiocoding wiki the same way:

CODE

AudioCodingWiki

CODE

AudioCodingWiki:Uncompressed+Audio+Formats

Gecko

Sep 8 2003, 01:57

Someone should take the current FAQ and distill the large amount of posts for each question into one article.

I've also allways been a fan of "short answer / long answer".

A glossary would be good. ABX, C2, mid/side stereo... In the wiki itself, there could be a list of unexplained words, every user who feels a word needs explaining, adds it to the bottom. The community will fill it in.

Maybe a general introduction into the philosophy of HA and the overall community would be good, so people know with whom their dealing with.

I agree mostly with Mac's index. I think the "Introduction to music compression (new users guide)" should be split up into the glossary and the philosophy part. A "getting started" section would contain the most often asked FAQs and serve as a jump-point to more in depth sections for the interested newcomer. We should take care that the information presented in the "audio cd copy protection" section doesn't violate any laws of the country this site is hosted in (US law, I guess).

David Nordin

Sep 8 2003, 02:14

I have to say Mac's tree looks very good, that would be a great start atleast.

dev0

Sep 8 2003, 04:38

A small addition to Mac's excellent layout:

CODE

There are some people, who are reluctant to think at all and those certainly won't visit the Secure Ripping and each formats page.

Mac

Sep 8 2003, 06:50

Please ignore me

(i've not deleted my post so you can all laugh)

Thankyou Jan for a usable guide

QUOTE

I'm sorry, I have had a go at making a new index for the wiki, but something is seriously wrong. Either I am not interpreting the instructions properly, or something is wrong in the setup.

It's most likely the first, I have found the instructions provided (both the quick and details versions) are nothing short of horrible, so I expect to have got them wrong.

A guide written by someone who both understands the system, and understands how to communicate effectively would be *more* than welcome.

To specify, I can't get anything other than GayWikiStyleLinks to work. Granted, that's how wiki's should look, but that style is not condusive to an easy learning environment for new users.

WhyShouldIUseABXTestingMethodologiesInsteadOfWinamp

goweropolis

Sep 8 2003, 09:33

Mac's index is great. A small suggestion to make it a little simpler though would be to differentiate between lossy & lossless audio compression formats up front in the index. The priorities are different so comparing via the Wiki would make more sense if it was divided among lossy & lossless.

On second thought, there are codecs like WavPack that are both lossy & lossless ...

Jan S.

Sep 9 2003, 08:44

I created a little guide to the wiki formatting:
http://doc.hydrogenaudio.org/wikis/hydroge...itingGuidelines

Hope this will help ppl contribute.

Jan S.

Sep 10 2003, 09:57

I have filled most terms in the Glossary now (with info from old FAQ made by ha members over a year ago...).

btw.: why are so few ppl contributing to the wiki? Seems that ppl have been asking for it for a while and now that it is here we don't see many ppl jumping in.

Mac

Sep 10 2003, 10:54

I'm not confident to write about most topics because I don't know all that much, and I drew a blank when trying to write the newbies guide..

Jan S.

Sep 10 2003, 11:13

QUOTE(Joseph @ Sep 10 2003, 07:09 PM)

How about a forum for listening tests? You could have all the listening Test threads in one forum so they will be easy to find.

Forum? This is the wiki forum and this thread is for wiki discussion...

Joseph

Sep 10 2003, 11:16

opps

Gecko

Sep 10 2003, 14:13

QUOTE(Jan S. @ Sep 10 2003, 05:57 PM)

btw.: why are so few ppl contributing to the wiki? Seems that ppl have been asking for it for a while and now that it is here we don't see many ppl jumping in.

I've been hesitating as the system doesn't seem all that stable atm. Also the formatting seems less trivial than I thought. Will check the guides. Give it some time.

Dibrom

Sep 10 2003, 21:53

QUOTE(Gecko @ Sep 10 2003, 01:13 PM)

QUOTE(Jan S. @ Sep 10 2003, 05:57 PM)

btw.: why are so few ppl contributing to the wiki? Seems that ppl have been asking for it for a while and now that it is here we don't see many ppl jumping in.

I've been hesitating as the system doesn't seem all that stable atm. Also the formatting seems less trivial than I thought. Will check the guides. Give it some time.

Aside from a few of the restructured text directives initially not being supported as shown in the docs (due to an outdated version being implemented), and some quirks (not show stoppers) with the login system, everything has been working fine. After updating the restructured text support, the email functionality of the site has been non-functional, but this is a recent problem. The inherint functionality of the system beyond these points is pretty solid through and through.

As for the formatting, a lot of people seem to think that it's complex, but I think this is only because they are making it that way. That and perhaps they are intimidated by the very thorough documentation on how the formatting works.

Basically, for the most part the formatting is in a WYSIWYG style, just with text instead of graphically. You only really run into issues when you try to control things in the formatting the way you would with traditional HTML. The reason for this is that this is not what a Wiki is for. Just about no Wiki formatting language in existence is as thorough and robust as [x]html (or even close to the functionality of restructured text for that matter), and for a good reason: The point is not so much to format the content as to structure the content. If we want to make everything look all exact and pretty, that's a different goal and shouldn't be tied in with the Wiki. In a case like that, we could simply use information "grown" with the Wiki to populate a more formalized set of documents.

Anyway, I don't mean to pick on the statement you made, I just think this is a point that should be emphasized, especially given the general sentiment some people seem to have about the current system.

Gecko

Sep 11 2003, 03:27

QUOTE(Dibrom @ Sep 11 2003, 05:53 AM)

Anyway, I don't mean to pick on the statement you made, I just think this is a point that should be emphasized, especially given the general sentiment some people seem to have about the current system.

Well, the last few times I looked at the documents, some sections disappeared and reappeared, links that formerly worked now pointed to nowhere. Some pages from one second to the next wouldn't load anymore. On some occasions Mozilla would offer to download the raw php code instead of rendering the parsed html etc. That gave me the impression: they're still working on things and fixing stuff. If you mess with the system now it might cause trouble. Not sure if these were temporary issues or if this is the expected behaviour of a Wiki. Maybe it was just bad timing.

I saw people linking to the Wiki on several occasions allready. Congrats!

The (needed) ongoing discussion about the structure of the Wiki might also make people insecure about posting.

Volcano

Sep 14 2003, 10:34

It has been working fine for me, I have been playing with it since yesterday evening. reStructuredText is actually quite cool to work with once you've got the hang of it.

I'll volunteer to do the EAC and CDex guides (perhaps dBpowerAMP + AccurateRip as well), in fact I've started writing the EAC guide already. I'll extend it bit by bit every day until complete.

There's one slight error: The style of headings is the same for 1st (<h2>) and 2nd rank (<h3>) sections, which makes some documents harder to overview. (3rd rank headings use a smaller font as it's supposed to be, though.) A quick change in the stylesheet will fix this.

Pio2001

Sep 20 2003, 08:46

QUOTE(Jan S. @ Sep 10 2003, 06:57 PM)

why are so few ppl contributing to the wiki? Seems that ppl have been asking for it for a while and now that it is here we don't see many ppl jumping in.

The concept is a bit frightening. The TOC is done, articles are posted. When we think about an addition or a change, we wonder what people will say : "Hey ! What did you change my page ? Hey ! This is off topic ! Stop messing with the current work ! etc..."

For the time being, the participation status is unclear. It seems to me that anyone is free to register and write anything anywhere. We should beware of trolls capable or ruining our work by maliciously modifying several notes here and there, not enough for us to notice immediately, but enough for turning false all the info.
I think that the registration should be subject to administrator approval.
A new member would fill a registration form saying why he wants to register, and what would be his first contribution. Then an administrator would open his account.

Then a council of members should be setup who could approve proposals.
For example, someone going to post a contribution would start a new thread or new poll here, asking "I'm going to add an article, or an entry about this". Then as soon as some members of the council answer or vote "no problem", he can update the wiki.

Jan S.

Sep 20 2003, 09:01

CODE

I don't really understand that. you are afraid that ppl will dislike what you contribute? I think that your thesis that ppl don't contribute because they are afraid ppl think they made it worse only applies for people that are not 100% what they are doing/talking about.
For all the senior members I don't think it would be a problem at all since they are capable of writting quality material. So far the people that have contributed has done fairly well as soon as they got used to the formatting system.
As long as you keep in mind to only write objective statements that can be proven I don't think there will ever be a problem.
And IMO if people dislike what other write they should just register and help make it better.

QUOTE

For the time being, the participation status is unclear. It seems to me that anyone is free to register and write anything anywhere. We should beware of trolls capable or ruining our work by maliciously modifying several notes here and there, not enough for us to notice immediately, but enough for turning false all the info.
I think that the registration should be subject to administrator approval.
A new member would fill a registration form saying why he wants to register, and what would be his first contribution. Then an administrator would open his account.

That is not a problem IMO. All ealier version of a page is saved so if someone fucks up we can always get back the old material. Nothing can be really deleted (by non-admins).
The reason that people should register at all is just to make it easier to figure out who did what so that it's easier to discuss additions/changes.

With the current speed that people are adding new stuff it has been no problem for me to keep an eye on what is happening and I know dibrom is watching the development too. So I'm not too afraid of anything bad happening...

dev0

Oct 12 2004, 00:37

Since a new and virgin HAK is up now, maybe it's time to come back to this discussion and collect some more ideas about organization and content.

smok3

Oct 12 2004, 12:47

CODE

|
|
|
|
|
'-- Video
|
|-- digital video general definitions
|-- mpeg4 definitions and usage of specific implementations
|-- avisynth scripting examples and usage in general
|-- containers (avi, ogm, matroska, etc)
|-- video editing, special fx and 2d,3d animation - (not just the tech stuff)
|-- video hardware
|-- DVD (encoding, transcoding, authoring, mpeg2)
'-- video misc

(note: wikis in general seems a bit confusing to me, but this one seems even weirder, anyway, i hope ill get to write something after few years staring at the syntax (j/k))
------------------------------------
other than that , imho the key to success is to have a really good starting navigation for the whole thing, one should be on the correct place with no more than 3 clicks.
------------------------------------

so entry points, based on this thread, could be:
------------------------------------
hydrogenaudio.org objectives and/or goals
-audio compression for newbies (usage of tools and explanations of basic priciples)
-audio compression formats
-audio hardware
-audio advanced topics
-video

(use some sort of color codes for defining where one is at specific point, or maybe some icons - based on this entry points, ugly example:
user posted image

)

Dibrom

Oct 12 2004, 15:34

QUOTE(smok3 @ Oct 12 2004, 10:47 AM)

------------------------------------
other than that , imho the key to success is to have a really good starting navigation for the whole thing, one should be on the correct place with no more than 3 clicks.
------------------------------------

so entry points, based on this thread, could be:
------------------------------------
hydrogenaudio.org objectives and/or goals
-audio compression for newbies (usage of tools and explanations of basic priciples)
-audio compression formats
-audio hardware
-audio advanced topics
-video

I agree. I think maybe we should organize things into top level categories on the page first, maybe like:

Audio Software
-->Encoders/Decoders
-->Rippers
-->Players
-->Editors
-->Testing Software
Audio Hardware
-->PC Audio
-->Hi Fi
-->Digital Audio Players
Audio Theory
-->Digital Audio
-->Encoding Technology
-->Testing Methodology
Other Topics
-->Video

I'd also like to have some sort of general resource in there for development too, like how to get started in coding audio tools, what some good libs are, where to find algorithms and information, etc., etc.

Dibrom

Oct 12 2004, 16:00

I've setup a basic skeleton for the content index page, which people can checkout now.

I'd like to keep discussing this here, but people are welcome to experiment by adding stuff now if they wish. We can always continue to refactor things as we go.

I also renamed the page to Topic Index, users who can't see this may need to empty their cache and reload the main page. This won't be continually necessary, but for structural changes on the main navigation area it is for the moment.

smok3

Oct 13 2004, 01:20

looks good imho, but instead of
-------------------
HAK Navigation (how this reads: wtf is hak? ok, thats ha+k, wtf is k? k as wiki?

)
* Topic Index (uhmm, this could be an entry point to something...?)
-------------------
i would try to put main entry 'topics' on the front page and label the whole things at least as 'ha knowledge base wiki' or similar.

Dibrom

Oct 13 2004, 02:19

QUOTE(smok3 @ Oct 12 2004, 11:20 PM)

looks good imho, but instead of
-------------------
HAK Navigation (how this reads: wtf is hak? ok, thats ha+k, wtf is k? k as wiki?

)

Well.. I suppose it's possible to change this. I'm not entirely sure how much of a difference it would make though.

QUOTE

* Topic Index (uhmm, this could be an entry point to something...?)
-------------------
i would try to put main entry 'topics' on the front page and label the whole things at least as 'ha knowledge base wiki' or similar.

The Topic Index already points to the index of topics... not sure exactly what else you might mean. If you can't see that, maybe it's a cache problem.

I don't think it's a good idea to put main links on the front page though because that obscures the forum aspect of the site too much IMO.

smok3

Oct 13 2004, 02:37

QUOTE

The Topic Index already points to the index of topics... not sure exactly what else you might mean. If you can't see that, maybe it's a cache problem.

i was trying to view the navigation from a 'fresh' perspective, as someone who just landed on ha.org (most people probably arent that familiar with wiki systems, and this wiki is one of the more complex ones - anyway, the strongest wiki feature; complete nonlinearity of navigation is also the weakest point, one could just get lost - like jump to the same info from 5 different locations..., so i was thinking about adding at least on the entry some sort of familiar linearity - 'forum like' thinking.)

QUOTE

I don't think it's a good idea to put main links on the front page though because that obscures the forum aspect of the site too much IMO.

i thought the idea was to 'force' wiki a bit more?

gusnz

Oct 13 2004, 02:51

The organisation looks good! However, before we get too involved in the Wiki setup, are we happy with the GNU FDL as Wikipedia uses? There are a lot of reasons not to use it, so perhaps we shoud pick a more liberal Creative Commons license instead?

Just thought I'd bring this to attention, as it's something that should be considered earlier in the organisational process rather than once you have content that needs to be re-licensed...

Brink

Oct 13 2004, 06:12

I'm afraid to contribute just because of my english. Since it's not my native language, a lot of gramatical errors may occur. AND I'm not an audio expert, I'm just an intermediate user.

If you're planning to translate the portal to other languages than english(like portuguese) I'm totally in.

dev0

Oct 13 2004, 08:18

Don't be afraid. Someone with a better englisch will come and correct your mistakes. That's the beauty of wikis: Almost every small contribution is useful in some way.

Dibrom

Oct 13 2004, 11:52

QUOTE(smok3 @ Oct 13 2004, 12:37 AM)

QUOTE

The Topic Index already points to the index of topics... not sure exactly what else you might mean. If you can't see that, maybe it's a cache problem.

Well it would definitely be possible to refine the language on the main page some to emphasize the wiki a little more, and perhaps point people to the guides or something.

QUOTE

I don't think it's a good idea to put main links on the front page though because that obscures the forum aspect of the site too much IMO.

i thought the idea was to 'force' wiki a bit more?

It is, but I don't want to completely obscure the forum. For as much as I'd like the wiki to become a "Big Deal", this site is and probably will always remain a site mostly about the forum community. Because of that, I really don't want to hide the forum part that much. If I put too many links on the main page, then all the forum activity gets pushed down to the bottom, and I can be sure that some people will definitely complain about that.

Latexxx

Oct 14 2004, 01:24

QUOTE

Small bug report: If I'm on edit page and click 'Topic Index', I'll get 404.

Yeah, I just noticed that. I'll see what I can do.

QUOTE

I added some topics to video section and I hope that the new wiki will get bigger soon.

Thanks

Hopefully some more people will decide to contribute some soon...

tiefling

Oct 14 2004, 05:46

QUOTE

Note: We need to figure out a good way to denote the distinction between software available on different platforms.

My Example:

Players
- Multiple platforms // Cross-platform
-- iTunes
- Windows
-- foobar2000
-- Winamp

Seemingly simple enough.. additional requirements, like iTunes need for a Windows version above 2000 could be put on the information page. I'd put most *nix apps (like JuK, Rhythmbox and Xine) under a "Linux" (or perhaps "Linux/BSD") title since that's where most of them are tested and compiled, even if they run under other *nixes (like Solaris).

As for Mac OS, I'd make a "Mac OS X" and "Mac OS Classic"/"Mac OS 9" section to separate the two, since there's seemingly a significant number of people running OS 9... (compared to how many runs Windows 3.x versus Windows 95 and higher).

I'll use this method and see how it ends up looking

Edit: Actually, it looked kind of messy. Perhaps better to just duplicate cross-platform players under different sections until the list becomes to big, or something...

Dibrom

Oct 14 2004, 12:04

QUOTE(tiefling @ Oct 14 2004, 03:46 AM)

Edit: Actually, it looked kind of messy. Perhaps better to just duplicate cross-platform players under different sections until the list becomes to big, or something...

Yeah, I thought about trying it the way you're doing it, but I was afraid it'd turn out the same. I think the main thing though is that as that page grows, eventually it'll end up becoming too long. On the bright side though, we can easily move some of those top level categories into their own pages when things get crowded enough... so it's not much of a problem in the end.

Thanks for helping btw

tiefling

Oct 21 2004, 15:33

I've added a FAQ to the FLAC page (I just added a few things, as examples mostly, I don't know if they're actually frequently asked questions, except perhaps the first one

). Does the style I used seem OK?

Personally, I've always liked the "Question, Short Answer, Long Answer" but I'm open to suggestions

beto

Oct 22 2004, 15:05

I added sections to the FAQ topic index: http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/index.php/Topic_Index

The structure seems ok, but I think that the FAQ on lossy (and future lossless FAQ) compression should be transferred to the format's page on a section FAQ or something. IMO it would be nice to concentrate discussions about specific wiki issues on the related talk pages. See here: http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/index.php/Talk:Topic_Index

encosion

Jan 5 2005, 12:26

I'm ready to contribute. I've noticed a distinct lack of information about Surround Sound formats. I'm willing to get the ball rolling, the problem is, where on earth would one put this information? Hence this post - you're all a lot more familiar with the HA Wiki than I am I can guarantee.

I think we'd have to start by defining Surround Sound with it's own section, outlining the various different approaches (Dolby Digital, DTS, THX, etc.) and formats (DTS, AC3, DTS-WAV, DD-WAV, OGG, M4A, etc). But at the same time, they also really need to live under the 'lossy' and 'lossless' sections too.

This is a "lo-fi" version of our main content. To view the full version with more information, formatting and images, please click here.