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[Richards]

There's been this tendency that began in the April release in 2010 to assume that every detail about the game has changed and to scrap entire works of literature that's been written. There's been some great authors who've written some funny but informative pages on important aspects of the game accumulating with the 40d version which were left 'behind' with the creation of the 2010 namespace.  The feeling of frustration as an author and empathy with others was not replaced.

The result is articles being dry and unfunny and only a shadow of the full and entertaining articles that 40d was developing. I actually had to import entire articles from 40d into the 2010 namespace only to replace and reword some of the things that actually changed from 40d.

I'm sad that some people think the articles in the dwarf fortress wiki are something to be made and destroyed with every version. I'd like to see the dwarf fortress wiki redevelop into the wiki that other developers of wikis coveted to be as detailed as. I hope that when new versions are released the practice of copying the previous article and then changing only the items that are touched will be adopted.

[Seikatsukan]

I might be mistaken, but I believe this is not the case. IIRC, user Quietust owns a bot that has been used to mass-copy the pages from the DF2010 name to the new DF2012 when the major upgrade came around. It is to be expected that this will be the case for every major release from now on.

[Locriani]

Seikatsukan is correct.

[Quietust]

Also, what is "24d"? The older versions of Dwarf Fortress covered on the wiki are 0.23.130.23a (the old 2D version), 0.28.181.40d (the last major version before 2010), and 0.31.25.

There's been this tendency that began in the April release in 2010 to assume that every detail about the game has changed and to scrap entire works of literature that's been written.

That's because that assumption was correct - lots of details about the game did change, and keeping all of the original information around would've been utterly disastrous to the people who actually needed it to be correct...

[ResMar]

The wiki needs labor more then anything. I filled out large chunks, but there's still tons of stuff to do, and a lot of butchering values to determine.

For instance, right now I am training war giraffes, something the wiki makes no mention of...

[Seikatsukan]

The wiki needs labor more then anything. I filled out large chunks, but there's still tons of stuff to do, and a lot of butchering values to determine.

For instance, right now I am training war giraffes, something the wiki makes no mention of...

The wiki does need work, but that's what the userbase is there for after all. I've been doing some work of my own there. Also, it does mention that you can train war giraffes, in both the giraffe page and the animal trainer page.

[ResMar]

I just rewrote the giraffe article, that's why

[Richards]

I might be mistaken, but I believe this is not the case. IIRC, user Quietust owns a bot that has been used to mass-copy the pages from the DF2010 name to the new DF2012 when the major upgrade came around. It is to be expected that this will be the case for every major release from now on.

Seikatsukan is correct.

Thank you for this information.

Also, what is "24d"? The older versions of Dwarf Fortress covered on the wiki are 0.23.130.23a (the old 2D version), 0.28.181.40d (the last major version before 2010), and 0.31.25.

There's been this tendency that began in the April release in 2010 to assume that every detail about the game has changed and to scrap entire works of literature that's been written.

That's because that assumption was correct - lots of details about the game did change, and keeping all of the original information around would've been utterly disastrous to the people who actually needed it to be correct...

You're the problem!! Who cares if there is a tiny bit of bad information a week or two after a release is made? I understand this is a generalization. But still! The wiki is developed by people and it's easily understandable that information which came from the previous release requires an update.

Here's what you do:

1. Update your bot so that it copies the entire namespace into a new namespace.

2. Add a box disclaimer at the top like the D for Dwarf thing which states that the information has not been updated.

3. I will personally.. RE-READ every single page for factual errors and correct them. Then I will remove the little box from the top or bottom of the article.

This will save time and also preserve the feel and text of the Dwarf fortress wiki. It's as much the authors wiki as it is yours. And yet while I thank you for providing the community with a wikipedia template, I also know that you're crazy for the practice of wiping out many articles of the dwarf fortress wiki after every major version release and requiring users to redo many articles in there to the same standard as before. If I am missing anything that's clearly understood from the standpoint of being a wiki administrator I would ask you to inform me gently.

The wiki needs labor more then anything. I filled out large chunks, but there's still tons of stuff to do, and a lot of butchering values to determine.

For instance, right now I am training war giraffes, something the wiki makes no mention of...

Thanks for working on the wiki. You're making it like it was in 40d.

The wiki does need work, but that's what the userbase is there for after all. I've been doing some work of my own there. Also, it does mention that you can train war giraffes, in both the giraffe page and the animal trainer page.

I just rewrote the giraffe article, that's why

LOL

Thanks for the replies.

[Greendogo]

I have to agree with the OP.  Visiting the wiki after a new release and finding pages missing from the previous release is frustrating when most of the information remained accurate.

[Richards]

I have to agree with the OP.  Visiting the wiki after a new release and finding pages missing from the previous release is frustrating when most of the information remained accurate.

Thank you. I agree with you agreeing with me.

[ResMar]

I have to agree with the OP.  Visiting the wiki after a new release and finding pages missing from the previous release is frustrating when most of the information remained accurate.

Thank you. I agree with you agreeing with me.

Agreed.

[Quietust]

I've just found a perfect example of why carrying information forward from previous versions can be a bad idea.
The contents of the "Melt item" page date back to version 0.23.130.23a, and they've been blindly copied forward ever since. I've just confirmed that the information previously present there was totally false. Melt yields were never 1/10th the item's MATERIAL_SIZE - up through version 0.34.05 they've been completely constant (0.8 bars for all armor, 0.5 bars for all weapons and shields and trap components, 0.3 bars for all helms and gloves and boots, etc.). It wasn't until version 0.34.06 that Toady made them respect MATERIAL_SIZE, and he chose to have them return 0.3 bars per unit rather than 0.1.

The wiki is supposed to be a source of verified information, yet crap like this somehow works its way in and persists without ever being properly checked. This is why information can never simply be copied from older versions - even if the actual behavior hasn't changed, it's possible that the documented behavior has never been correct.

[Seikatsukan]

I've just found a perfect example of why carrying information forward from previous versions can be a bad idea.
The contents of the "Melt item" page date back to version 0.23.130.23a, and they've been blindly copied forward ever since. I've just confirmed that the information previously present there was totally false. Melt yields were never 1/10th the item's MATERIAL_SIZE - up through version 0.34.05 they've been completely constant (0.8 bars for all armor, 0.5 bars for all weapons and shields and trap components, 0.3 bars for all helms and gloves and boots, etc.). It wasn't until version 0.34.06 that Toady made them respect MATERIAL_SIZE, and he chose to have them return 0.3 bars per unit rather than 0.1.

The wiki is supposed to be a source of verified information, yet crap like this somehow works its way in and persists without ever being properly checked. This is why information can never simply be copied from older versions - even if the actual behavior hasn't changed, it's possible that the documented behavior has never been correct.

That was one massive edit there, I must admit... However, I still believe just wiping everything out and starting from scratch is kinda overkill.
Maybe we could add some sort of "Mass-verification" template? It could be atop the page, like the Buggy one, or at the beginning of each section of the article for more granular control, so people could know when a page was recently copied from an older namespace. This way, we have a base to work on, but other users are also warned that the information in the page/section has not yet been verified for the new version.

[vidboi]

That was one massive edit there, I must admit... However, I still believe just wiping everything out and starting from scratch is kinda overkill.
Maybe we could add some sort of "Mass-verification" template? It could be atop the page, like the Buggy one, or at the beginning of each section of the article for more granular control, so people could know when a page was recently copied from an older namespace. This way, we have a base to work on, but other users are also warned that the information in the page/section has not yet been verified for the new version.

Or we could use the current system where users review the previous versions pages and copy over what still applies and rewrite what's changed? I really don't see the problem here, and copying over all the old stuff would just lead to misinformation.

[ResMar]

The problem is that the wiki has about five active people at a time.