ICT wiki

[Rival]

Would anyone be interested in assisting in creating an ICT wiki of every player in the current squad and who's ever played in the team? Jw?

[BornCaley]

great idea

[Rival]

Would you have the time to assist born Caley?

[kilda]

I would have time to assist.

[Rival]

If we could get enough people to don't we could start soon, and whether we could ask a mod to do it through the site or on a separate page.

[TheHighlandsAreOurs]

This sounds good I wanna help!

[CALEYJACK]

I'm up 4 it

[Scotty]

We already have something similar to a wiki in our stats program: http://stats.caleythistleonline.com/

 

These are also picked up by the official site for use on ictfc.com as well as on here so get a wider audience than just one site.

Although we have all the info available for every ICT game, data-entry has been the issue and the info in the program itself is not complete so there is plenty of scope for user driven content, or for volunteers to complete the data-entry.

 

Alternatively - and this is something myself and CaleyD have discussed previously - we could add a Caley Thistle wiki to the site separately if the idea is to have a more irreverent set of listings, or for it to cover more than just players, matches and results.

 

For the wiki idea, there are a couple of alternatives. The main program we use here for our content does have a database facility that some sites have used for wiki style content. registered users can add content and it can be made available to all. http://talkchelsea.net is probably about the best example of it in action. the other alternative is to use a separate wiki installation using the same software as wikipedia and locate it on a subdomain like wiki.caleythistleonline.com which can be pulled into the site on pages the same way as we do with the stats.

 

We are definitely in favour of the idea, but lets hear more from volunteers or those who would commit to adding the info .......

[Rival]

Yea but Scotty it doesn't have like a full detailed profile

[BornCaley]

Would you have the time to assist born Caley?

 

Sorry I don't at the moment!  Its seems you have a few volunteers though!

[Rival]

I would have the time to add to this

[Guest]

http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki 

 

You should use this. Free software that will enable a Wikipedia style wiki to be produced.

[Scotty]

thats one of the alternatives I was thinking of ..... we do have the ability to get it up and running, and it seems 'Rival' is up for it, but will there be enough help ?

 

Like I said, we have the stats minisite already, and we made several requests for help with that but none was forthcoming, hence the reason it is both incomplete and utilises the biographies supplied by the club programme editor.

[Alex MacLeod]

If one or two of the guys are interested in building the current stats segment then I'd be inclined to give them the power. I would,however, ask that they use spell checkers and good grammar and make sure the profiles look professional. The Wikipedia ICT page looks like parts of it have been written by a barbary monkey on acid.

[CaleyD]

A wiki needs more than one or two people, and it needs almost daily commitment to keep it up-to-date and accurate...and that comes from experience.  Scotty and I have been toiling to get the stats up to date and we've been at that for 2 or 3 years (maybe more).

 

Putting the site/software in place is the easy part....entering nearly 20 years of data and information, as well as keeping on top of all the new data and information is not an insubstantial task.

 

Not trying to put people off, but if this is something that is going to happen then people need to go in to it with a full appreciation of what is involved and the commitment required.

 

It would, IMO, be a fantastic thing to have and I hope enough people can be found to support it, get it off the ground and keep it going.

[Scotty]

Putting the site/software in place is the easy part....entering nearly 20 years of data and information, as well as keeping on top of all the new data and information is not an insubstantial task.

 

and that - from experience - tends to be the main problem.

 

Getting it setup, and the first flush of data entry is a breeze because it is "interesting", but after you get a year or two entered, or maybe 30 or 40 players of the near 200 who have played for ICT then the enthusiasm wears off and it becomes repetitive, boring and a chore, especially for those players whose info you have to go searching for ..... I know this to be the case as thats why myself and CaleyD have taken so long with our own stats section and we have the benefit of Ian Broadfoot's stuff, as well as access to Bryan Munro's articles, and various photographers work.

 

On the plus side, the info for any player who already has a wikipedia entry could be imported without any copyright issues as its a creative commons license. not sure how that is achieved, be it a cut and paste or an import script, but happy to take a look into it and maybe even setup a trial wiki if we get a few takers.

[Rival]

I wouldn't mind searching as I have been through this repetitive routine type thing before and I can manage-!

[Scotty]

ok. I did a little digging, and some testing .......

 

Installing mediawiki = no problem (10 minutes)

Setting it up (just default, with no extensions or formatting templates) = no big deal (20 minutes)

Creating Categories and a couple of basic pages = no big deal once I did a bit of reading (30 mins)

 

BUT

 

picking a random profile of a former ICT player from wikipedia (Ross Tokely) and then copying it over and installing all the required extensions, formatting templates and other bits and pieces required to produce a page similar to wikipedia player profiles was a feckin monster. It took 5 hours and required about 350+ different pieces of code to be inserted as templates, extensions, or snippets so that it recognised all the formatting, shortcodes and other stuff ...... I was surprised as I thought a lot of that was built into the program itself.

 

It wont take 5 hours per player obviously as these templates and code snippets were (hopefully) one-time deals, but when you get to club details, squad lists, season summaries, nationalities, appearances etc etc etc then there are probably several hundred more bits of code involved as the formatting and layouts are different.

 

I agree with CaleyD, this would be a great idea, but the setup and code preparation is likely to take hundreds of man hours and I am not prepared to put that in without an extremely significant undertaking from a group of people to populate it and maintain it.

 

In the meantime, I would suggest the creation of a separate forum "ICT WIKI" perhaps and those interested in participating can submit articles as posts to that forum and if it looks like it will be well supported we can look to scaling that to a proper wiki ......... either via media wiki or as a database within our existing ip.content program.   

[Alex MacLeod]

Is there no possibility of shoehorning in a simple database that could be populated both by manual insertion and cut & paste from researching other public domain places such as Wiki, Soccerbase etc.? Have it done such that the source of info is acknowledged as is done in Wiki. I know its all a big challenge for the persons doing this. And if there are a number of people involved they need to communicate and agree with each other as to whats being included and who's doing what. Its a challenge and its not something I've seen on any other site so it could be another first for CTO and ICTFC.

I dont have a clue how the sort of software needed works but I can appreciate that the whole project will be a time consuming and difficult task but I'm sure that if committed people can be found then the historians and BBC Reporters/Writers would be only too willing to give up information.

 

Going back to what I said earlier it has to look professional so the volunteer's must have a good grasp of grammar.

Edited January 15, 2013 by Alex MacLeod

[Scotty]

The words simple and database dont usually exist in the same sentence .....

 

Wikipedia is simple right ? well it is for the end user at least, they simply go in add the info maybe add a few square brackets with stuff inside to denote keywords or codes to format the stuff and hey presto .... the reason it is simple for the user is that the poor sod in the background has had to make it easier for them by spending hours adding code for that simple stuff !

 

As mentioned, over and above the stats program, we do also have a database capability within our content system and although not as 'sexy' as setting up a fully fledged wiki using the same software as wikipedia, it can do everything asked so far including allowing users to add/edit entries if they have the right permissions ... we just havent used it for that yet. (see talkchelsea.net for a super duper example)

 

If someone wants to add a few 'test' entries into the forums, I can use them as the basis for testing on both the wikipedia style program and also our own one to see if there is a system that can be easy for all concerned.

 

I still have fears it will be something that burns bright for a while then fades away though ... I know from experience that one person, even a keen one like RIVAL, cannot do it alone .... look how many people it takes to keep this site running smoothly !

[Yngwie]

I've split the grammar debate off into a separate thread in Serious Topics so that this one can remain focused on discussing the wiki project.