Speedsolving.com Wiki:General discussion

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This page will be used to organize efforts to improve the Speedsolving.com Wiki. A centralized discussion page for major changes belong here. Since there aren't many active editors, concentrating the discussion here will probably be better than on individual Talk pages. If we ever run into the happy problem of having too large a discussion page, separate pages can be created for individual projects. Please sign your comments (four tildes (~) without space).

Useful links for editors

Creation of a Help link

I'm very new here and noticed that you don't have a Help link. (Or at least I can't find it)
I'm a Wikipedia editor and so I'm assuming you're effectively using the help files of Wikipedia.
May I suggest that you create a help link in the left hand column and then on the help page effectively say as much and maybe link to the main help search page at Wikipedia. Or maybe you're using the help pages provided by the creators of this Wiki software.
The thing is that I've just created a GIF for the commutator page and discovered that you don't get a working GIF if you use the Thumb setting to display it. I believe this is unique to this wiki software and I would have liked to have made a note of that so that the next guy could learn from my troubles.
There was also something else about creating names for image files.
I would be happy to create the Help page if someone would create the Help link. That being said, I might be the wrong guy for the job, but I could get it started.--Dave3457 (talk) 15:46, 28 November 2012 (EST)

Hi Dave, The reason we don't have a help link is because the scale of this wiki is quite small. All of the edits are either mostly simple things, like changing the WR pages, or updating something about a person, and most of the page creation is done by someone who has been on here for a while. A help page would only really benefit the few of us who do regular edits and new pages, and so the Wikipedia ones are used since there are no changes that make major differences. As for the GIF Thumb problem, is this also a problem on Wikipedia? If not, you might want to send a message to pjk on the forums about it, he's the site owner, and deals with some of the problems with the Wiki sometimes. Finally, on the subject of names, as long as it is descriptive, and not too long or short, it should be fine. Again, since this is a small wiki, we're unlikely to get conflicts on image names. MaeLSTRoM (talk) 03:25, 29 November 2012 (EST)
Well if you are using the Wikipedia help pages, why aren't you pointing that out? By "I would create the help page" I meant that I would point it out. I'm sure there are users that might be willing to make small changes and such, and maybe large ones, but as things stand right now, unless they have edited Wikipedia they wouldn't know where to start. And they wouldn't necessarily know that they could just use Wikipedia's help pages.
I checked, Wikipedia doesn't have the GIF Thumb problem. I told pjk about it on his talk page.
Regarding image names, it didn't take the character ' which is probably not specific to this wiki, however since we use that character alot, I thought I would have mentioned it.
Actually, I just thought of something, I will link to this discussion from his talk page. Maybe I can talk Him into it :) -- Dave3457 (talk) 17:42, 29 November 2012 (EST)

Naming convention

Following Wikipedia, do not capitalize common nouns unless it is the first word. Some articles still have not been renamed; in this case, links to the original article should also be modified and the original article deleted. Redirects shouldn't be used to correct linking to a wrong title.

Categorization

Kenneth set up a nice Category:Resources (retitled from Cubing Resources) a while back, but I'm trying to set up parallel categorization systems that are closer to Wikipedia's; see e.g. Category:Contents, Category:Cubers, further classifications therein, and going up to Category:Main topic classifications. Macky 23:30, 18 May 2012 (EDT)

Wikipedia's organization system

This is the parallel organization structure I'm trying to set up. For more info see this and links therein. Macky (talk) 02:15, 24 May 2012 (EDT)

One reason for adopting Wikipedia's organization system:

  • Visitors are likely to be best used to it.
  • Logical and accurate. This leads to better organization in the long run and will also help us see which articles are still needed.

e.g. Currently Category:Algorithms contains articles for substeps that contain algorithms. On Wikipedia, such a category would contain instead articles on the algorithms themselves (e.g. Sune). This category should be created, and the current category should be renamed to Category:Pages containing algorithms, itself put eventually in Category:Articles. It's undeniable that such a category is very useful, but the proper way to give it prominent place would be to put it in Category:Resources and feature it on the top page or some other portal pages.Macky (talk) 02:44, 24 May 2012 (EDT)

Tools

People/Cubers

Please keep an eye on the What are you famous for? thread and add articles as appropriate. Macky 23:33, 18 May 2012 (EDT)

Terminology

Category:Terminology. Everything is terminology. I filed terms in subcategories when possible so that this parent category doesn't get out of hand. Macky (talk) 02:50, 24 May 2012 (EDT)

Proposed categories

  • "Category:WCA events" (not the same as puzzles). Maybe there should be a parent-category to include non-WCA events as well, but Category:Events already exists (currently only contains competitions, but there are other uses). Category:Solving Variants should be renamed, maybe to reflect this. Macky (talk) 02:21, 24 May 2012 (EDT)

Algorithm pages

I have been thinking that we should transfer the alg database, and also tidy up the C*LL pages by making pages for seperate sub-sets of algs. These would look and function much the same as the current PLL / OLL pages, but would be for other alg sets such as ZBLL, OLLCP, 1LLL, WV etc. Maybe split some of the larger sets into seperate pages (ZBLL into seperate corner orientation cases maybe), just because currently for C*LL algs, there are about 3 different pages with algorithms on, and they aren't very organised. Maybe also change the alg template slightly to help with this, so that the set that alg belongs to is more clear (e.g. sune can be used for COLL, CMLL, CLL etc, whereas FRUR'U'F' is not useable for COLL). MaeLSTRoM (talk) 13:54, 29 May 2012 (EDT)

Product Links

So on some of the cube pages (example: Dayan) There are links to buy the cube on lightake, is this still the site that we want to be reccomending to people, or would changing it to the SS shop, or maybe even no shop at all be better? MaeLSTRoM (talk) 18:30, 11 November 2012 (EST)

I've noticed this, and on most pages that have these links, they are very outdated. I would recommend removing these sorts of links and instead having a page or a category listing shops that sell puzzles to guide people who are looking to buy a product. Sethhugg (talk) 23:09, 28 November 2016 (UTC) User:sethhugg 23:08 UTC, 28 Nov. 2016

Okay I've conducted a basic clean-up of the pages in Category:Puzzle Manufacturers - I got rid of all those dead lightake links. And I also rewrote various bits of stuff into the past tense, so that the wiki is no longer declaring the DaYan GuHong or whatever as the greatest cube ever. Spacecircles (talk) 13:17, 20 May 2017 (UTC)

Sign-up Question

I have been alerted to the fact that the signup question is out of date, can someone change this, I can't find how to myself, and I'd rather not break something by accident by poking around. MaeLSTRoM (talk) 04:04, 7 June 2013 (EDT)

Mobile viewing

The homepage of the wiki has been modified over the last few months to show featured articles, etc. It looks great on desktop, but on mobile it doesn't. Can someone work to resolve this please? Thanks. --PJK (talk) 03:34, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

Is that better now ? Could you protect the main page for no spam ?--Martinss (talk) 21:11, 10 October 2017 (UTC)
Definitely better, thanks, though the picture of the day is a bit small for desktop: https://www.dropbox.com/s/ji0bvf4htrnlgli/Screenshot%202017-10-11%2014.14.15.png?dl=0
As for spam on the homepage - any suggestions to combat it? I've installed a view plugins in the past. Cheers! --PJK (talk) 19:17, 11 October 2017 (UTC)

No one cares about mobile! I reverted to the desktop-good version.