User talk:Robin

Tidying This

I'm starting a discussion here because I'm having trouble navigating my way round the site -- which is surely a bad sign, considering how much time I spend here. There are at least 3 different groups of people to bear in mind when modifying this:

1. Casual browsers trying to find information
2. More advanced users who are not editors but who might one day become editors
3. Wikispooks Editors

Before talking about smaller points, perhaps it would be worth discussing, are these three equally important? Personally, I am inclined to make (2) the priority at the moment, intending to attract more editors.

Robin (talk) 15:57, 11 November 2013 (GMT)

Sorry - only just spotted this.

Piwik stats show that the bulk of site visitors get here from a Google search. They are followed by fairly regular links posted on Reddit ('Conspiracy' and 'Endless war' sub-Reddits mainly); then Twitter (I regularly tweet article and document links) then Facebook, then odd mentions on odd sites about specific subjects that sometimes bring a flood of brief visits. A single page accounts for around 15% of total site visits since it was posted 3 years ago - 9/11:Israel did it. It remains the top visited page nearly every day.

I agree it would be nice to have more editors. Site purpose would be more effectively advanced. I'm happy for you to exercise judgements over which group to prioritise on navigational matters. I do think a mandatory form for DocProv would be good when current mountain of work and mods is complete. Also, I have still not thought through the most effective way to employ semantic properties with categories. I'm still also preoccupied with timeline stuff - I am using the Sandbox wiki a lot now too --Peter P (talk) 21:56, 20 November 2013 (GMT)

I'm also mulling over a major main page revamp using SMW to select and present lists rather than the current mish-mash using both the 'News' and 'DynamicPageList' extensions. SMW can do all they currently do without defining any more properties - there are resource implications that I do not fully understand yet though --Peter P (talk) 11:37, 21 November 2013 (GMT)

Bots

Since any user can be made a member of the Bot group, I am unclear what the purpose of the two new users are - beyond their user pages being a logical place for discussing the use of bots anyway. Do you have any existing bot or bot framework in mind? --Peter P (talk) 07:58, 8 December 2013 (GMT)

The other main benefit of a separate user is the ability to keep statistics/edits clear. Today's User:UpgradeBot efforts are by a home baked PHP script adapted from this. Robin (talk) 13:22, 8 December 2013 (GMT)

SMW potential etc

The SMW query additions to William Blum David Guyatt John Pilger Sharmine Narwani and Mark Curtis provide insight into some of the potential for SMW use on Wikispooks. I have not altered any other author person pages yet because this needs a bit more thought. Such queries can themselves be saved and parameterised for use in templates. There are also many other output formats, the appearance of which can usually be tweeked with CSS, so best to settle on a bit of standardisation before taking this further. I also think we should delete all the named person categories in Category:Authors because they duplicate the SMW Property:Is author which is far more useful and are thus redundant - some of them can be converted straight into regular pages because they have page-like content already. There is also scope for dramatically pruning the current category tree and replacing with better considered SMW properties. - Lots of work and I want to be addressing content rather more - Hmmm --Peter P (talk) 09:43, 12 December 2013 (GMT)

I've done a couple of new templates and had a first pass at the above pages now - plus just one subject page Blood diamond. --Peter P (talk) 15:08, 12 December 2013 (GMT)

A couple of useful tools

1. php cache information
2. The RTRC facility accessible from the sidebar

--Peter P (talk) 10:18, 26 January 2014 (GMT)

Plus: Old server sub expires 10 February. I think I've got everything needed off of it. Is there anything you can think of before it vanishes?

And there IS still a date problem but a function of the latest Release of SMW Forms. If the day is not completed then an error is printed on the page, in red, right after the template info Expression error: Unexpected < operator.. As before, it's OK if just the year is completed or if day month and year are completed. See File:King Family File Transcript.pdf for an example. No sweat to wait for a fix with next release though --Peter P (talk) 15:58, 26 January 2014 (GMT)

Nothing springs to mind, if the scripts etc. are working OK on the new one. Best take a backup copy of everything else, just in case. Robin (talk) 16:13, 26 January 2014 (GMT)

Video display problem

Can you have a look at Template:MainPageVideoArchive and Template:MainPageVideo2 , neither of which display video correctly following your mods to Template:Video. The issue concerns the new subtext field and is apparent on The green fields of France video currently on the Main Page and first on Main Page/Videos. I've spent ages on it and can't figure it out. I need it working properly before changing the forms and doing something similar for the Main Page Images display and archive --Peter P (talk) 07:01, 13 September 2014 (IST)

Email

Just sent a message to your Unwelcome Guests account re system issues.

I also sent an email on 15-9-14. No reply needed to it but not sure if you received it. --Peter P (talk) 19:42, 26 September 2014 (IST)

Potentially useful tools

The Mobo project looks potentially useful for SMW development.

• This is a techie paper about it.
• This is a presentation.

Also, no reply to previous message or last 2 emails. Nothing earth-shattering but I think our comms really ought to be a bit better. --Peter P (talk) 12:01, 7 October 2014 (IST)