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Topic: Ideas for organization... (Read 19588 times) previous topic - next topic
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Ideas for organization...

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?

Ideas for organization...

Reply #1
How about we'll start building the knowledge base by explaining to less educated, "what is Wiki?". I presonally never heard the word before
The Plan Within Plans

Ideas for organization...

Reply #2
Code: [Select]
INDEX
|
|-- Introduction to music compression (new users guide)
|    |
|    |-- How does it work?
|    |-- What are the best formats?
|    |-- How do you tell what is the best format?
|    |-- What is transparency / cd-quality
|    |-- What is ABX?
|    |-- Why is ABX needed? (basic overview, links to 'advanced' areas)
|    '-- What are good test procedures?
|
|
|-- Music Formats
|    |
|    |-- Unbiased pros / cons (with a link to lossless)
|    |    |
|    |    |-- Quality / bitrate
|    |    |-- Hardware
|    |    '-- Compatability (linux/mac/sun/amiga?)
|    |
|    |-- Recommended settings / encoders
|    |    |
|    |    '-- One for each format
|    |
|    |-- Useful tools
|    |    |
|    |    '-- RareWares links (with *proper* explanations!!)
|    |
|    '-- Lossless Audio
|         |
|         |-- What is it?
|         |-- Lossy vs. Lossless? Which is right for me?
|         '-- Lossless formats (pro's & cons)
|
|
|-- Audio Hardware / CD Audio Ripping
|    |
|    |-- Why secure ripping?
|    |-- Guides for CDEX/EAC/dbPowerAmp? (links)
|    |-- Copy protection
|    |    |
|    |    |-- Why is it there?
|    |    |-- Can it be defeated?
|    |    '-- Should it be defeated? (ethics)
|    |
|    |-- Are some cd drives better than others?
|    |    |
|    |    '-- Recommended & (should be avoided) drives (if any)
|    |
|    |-- Sound card quality
|    |    |
|    |    |-- Benefits of 24/96 for mainstream use / recording use
|    |    '-- Disadvantage of resampling
|    |-- Recommended & (should be avoided) sound-cards (and why?)
|    |
|    '-- Other hardware
|         |
|         |-- Headphones
|         |-- Amplifiers
|         '-- Speakers
|
|
|-- 'Advanced' topics
|    |
|    |-- Proper subjective / objective discussion
|    '-- Let the clever people fill this in
|
'-- HA.org
   |
   |-- Forum policies
   '-- Staff / Credits
< w o g o n e . c o m / l o l >

Ideas for organization...

Reply #3
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?

Ideas for organization...

Reply #4
Quote
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?

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

Code: [Select]
foobar2000FAQ_

.. _foobar2000FAQ: ../foobar2000/FrequentlyAskedQuestions

Ideas for organization...

Reply #5
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 

Ideas for organization...

Reply #6
you can link to other wikis like this:

Link to foobar wiki:
Code: [Select]
FoobarWiki

Link to page at foobar wiki:
Code: [Select]
FoobarWiki:FrequentlyAskedQuestions


We can link to audiocoding wiki the same way:

Code: [Select]
AudioCodingWiki

Code: [Select]
AudioCodingWiki:Uncompressed+Audio+Formats

Ideas for organization...

Reply #7
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).


Ideas for organization...

Reply #9
A small addition to Mac's excellent layout:

Code: [Select]
|-- Newbie Guides
|    |
|    |-- Setting up EAC/CDex
|    |
|    |-- Musepack
|    |    |
|    |    |-- Ripping with EAC/CDex
|    |    |-- Using ReplayGain
|    |    |-- Playback using Winamp/foobar2000
[add something similiar for each format]


There are some people, who are reluctant to think at all and those certainly won't visit the Secure Ripping and each formats page.
"To understand me, you'll have to swallow a world." Or maybe your words.

 

Ideas for organization...

Reply #10
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
< w o g o n e . c o m / l o l >

Ideas for organization...

Reply #11
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 ... 


Ideas for organization...

Reply #13
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.

Ideas for organization...

Reply #14
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.. 
< w o g o n e . c o m / l o l >

Ideas for organization...

Reply #15
Quote
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...

Ideas for organization...

Reply #16
opps

Ideas for organization...

Reply #17
Quote
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.

Ideas for organization...

Reply #18
Quote
Quote
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
  • 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.

Ideas for organization...

Reply #19
Quote
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.

Ideas for organization...

Reply #20
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.

Ideas for organization...

Reply #21
Quote
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.

Ideas for organization...

Reply #22
Code: [Select]
 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..."

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...

Ideas for organization...

Reply #23
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.
"To understand me, you'll have to swallow a world." Or maybe your words.

Ideas for organization...

Reply #24
Code: [Select]
 |
|    
|    
|    
|
'-- 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:

)
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