WCPedia: IRC Conference After Action Report

Vinman

Vice Admiral
Well, the WCPedia meeting came and went, and a good bit of progress was made. After a few attempted games of Armada, we got down to work.

LOAF revealed that Arena began with a very... un-Wing Commander storyline before the developers were set straight regarding Wing Commander Canon. The WCPedia is, in addition to a fun project, an attempt to create a canon database for future developers to consult. We don't want any Burning Battles or for the Confederation to have its first civil war.

The last major effort on the WCPedia was based around the original Wing Commander. This time, it will be based around individual missions. From there, the encyclopedia will fill out.

We have determined to create example pages, paragons of our wiki-editing might that will inspire and set new editors straight on how pages are to be done.

The timeline has been modified, with individual year pages redirecting to that day's entry on the main year page.

Remember, there is no need to try and make things that don't make sense make sense. Even if you have a great explanation about why TCS Tiger Claw and TCS Tiger's Claw don't look at all alike, it doesn't really matter. Some aspects of Wing Commander canon don't make sense and it doesn't have to. It might be best not to think about it...
 
Right, there's also work planned for a stylebook as to what kind of images we want to use, what level of scanning- I believe PNG at 300 dpi is the preferred type for that- and other such things like page formatting and so on. Page mechanics 101, essentially.
 
We have selected several "examples" as premiere pages that will be used for creating other pages.

Characters: Iceman
Ship Class: Bengal
Ship: Hornet
Planet/System: Rostov

These pages will be used as templates for the rest. Our crack crew of WCPedia experts will be working on these over the following days and weeks.

We plan to keep everyone updated regularly and to hold *weekly*, yes *weekly* IRC talks about our progress.

We made a lot of progress tonight and we want to make sure that the BURNING BATTLE doesn't happening in our WC lifetimes.

Stay tuned and remember, next Sunday, 7pm EST, will be our next rally meeting.
 
Ok, the basics are pretty well explained but if you'd like to read the whole conference, here it is.
 

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I added links to the example pages we are to build this week to the front pages. They are:

Capital Ship: Bengal-class Strike Carrier
Fighter: Hornet-class Light Fighter
Character: Michael "Iceman" Casey
Star System: Rostov System
Location: Rostov III
Weapon: Javelin HS
Date: 2654.111
Mission: Epsilon Wing

If there are any others I've missed, let me know (I'm aware that I added several extras).

Now, lets talk about sources -- here are my guesses:

Bengal - Claw Marks, Wing Commander, Secret Missions, Secret Missions 2, Super Wing Commander, Ultimate Strategy Guide, Wing Commander Ports, Wing Commander II, Wing Commander Academy, Wing Commander Movie, Wing Commander Movie Novelization, Pilgrim Stars, Confederation Handbook, Freedom Flight, End Run, Star Soldier (?).

Hornet - Claw Marks, Wing commander, Secret Missions, Secret Missions 2, Kilrathi Saga Intro, Wing Commander Ports, Wing Commander Box Art, Wing Commander SNES Box Art, Secret Missions SNES Box Art, Fleet Action, False Colors, Star Soldier.

Iceman - Claw Marks, Wing Commander, Secret Missions, Secret Missions 2, Super Wing Commander, Wing Commander 2, Ultimate Strategy Guide, Wing Commander Prophecy, Wing Commander Prophecy Official Guide, Secret Ops Fiction, Freedom Flight

Rostov - Claw Marks, Wing Commander, Claw Marks Ports

Rostov III - Wing Commander

Javelin HS - Everything?

Date - Wing Commander, Pilgrim Stars(?)

Mission - Wing Commander, Ultimate Strategy Guide, Super Wing Commander(?)
 
It should be noted that the pages that are currently there (examples) are the ones we are building onto. Those are by no means the final versions yet. Just want to avoid any confusion.
 
Also, who is going to work on what entries this week? I think in all the excitement we forgot to delegate tasks to people.

Please post your choices.
 
Also, who is going to work on what entries this week? I think in all the excitement we forgot to delegate tasks to people.

Please post your choices.

I'd do the mission except I don't have the pictures that LOAF posted in his example. I do have the ultimate strategy guide and secrets of the wing commander universe, so I could probably do missions once in a while.
 
Well the mission page is basically done I believe.

I was thinking for the other pages. Most of them have their basics in there but are lacking later games, novels, etc.

As for images, that's just going to require a lot of hours of grabbing them. It's actually something I was hoping to enlist DaveO for since he's been great about grabbing screenshots for the replay. We could make a list of small things to start with.

As for scanning stuff, I don't have ready access to one, however I'll probably also be able to grab a few screenshots when necessary.
 
I don't have ready access to things like the novels or guides, and I've just had a good look at my schedule for the semester. Long story short, time with my desktop will be short, so it'll be difficult for me to grab stuff from the games. My primary efforts right now will be pulling things from the manuals, especially whatever can be found online, though I can bring a few of them from my house as need be.

Not exactly what you were looking for, but general manual information is the best I can do.
 
Hey that's fine, as you know every little bit helps.

I was looking at our example mission page and realized...how are we going to organize missions from the games? I'd hate to have one massive "Missions" Category, but didn't want to go ahead and create it and subcategories till I passed it by everybody else.

Also, about images, do we want to link them into the Images category and continue to subdivide it? I can see this being useful for people building articles if they know that some of the images they may need can easily be found without them having to upload them.

We also want to make sure that if we do upload single images that we categorize them so that they don't become lost in the mix.
 
We also need to standardize data tables for things like the fighters. For example, compare the tables for the Hornet and the Rapier, the Rapier has info for max afterburner velocity whereas the Hornet has no such thing. The Rapier article also has a row for "devices", which apparently only applies to the equipment available in Arena. I'm not sure how you want those handled- flares might be similar to, say, countermeasures, but I haven't played Arena so I couldn't really tell you much on that front.

https://www.wcnews.com/wcpedia/F-44_Rapier_II

https://www.wcnews.com/wcpedia/Hornet

Not sure if this is relevant, but also look at the article names (linked for convenience). While the Hornet article is labeled F-36 similar to how the Rapier is F-44, Hornet doesn't have the full designation in the URL. How do we want to handle this? Every Rapier in EXISTENCE is on that page, for instance, including the YF-44, and F-44 A-H. Not to mention the Arena variants. How do we name future articles on fighters, bearing things like this in mind?
 
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not to mention the images of the Rapier has a render from Saga, which while very pretty, isn't an actual wing commander source.
 
I'm fine with a list of 'wanted' pictures, although some of the ones I uploaded earlier probably should be deleted since they are not the best possible shots.
 
How do we want the layout for images in articles to go? The Hornet has quite the gallery at the bottom (I moved the 5 angle shot to the top as I think it's better up there then mixed in at the bottom). Do we want them on the same page as the article or on a page that is linked from it? Also, are we going to stuff every single image we can find in there (as it seems has been started with the Hornet) or are we going to be more conservative?

Also, let's getting cranking on some of these articles...we can all be working on them at the same time. :D
 
We should ensure that all of the relevant sources are available online. I think most of the game guides are, as well as additional materials from the games. Do we have the Confederation Handbook online as well?

I ask because this might be preventing people from diving in and tackling articles. I want to do the Javelin HS article, but I know I don't own many of the sources necessary to do the full write up.

This brings up another point - I want to clarify that the goal is in fact to include all relevant sources for each topic. So, using the Javelin as an example, we should document any differences in weapon stats/peformance envelopes from iteration to iteration (universe reference to universe reference,) correct?

EDIT: Well, now, wait a sec. It looks like the Javelin is taken care of...
 
I've almost got all the Arena fighters done, or at least in a passable state; I'm not going to declare any article I work on "done" until that darn stylebook gets finished. Speaking of which, I'm now willing to help with aspects of that as I begin to realize what EXACTLY needs to be included for certain areas there.

I'm also pulling together info on all the Dralthi variants. Expect things to be reasonably far on both projects by our next IRC conference, at least as far as I can get without inserting things like extensive timeline information.
 
Just because those articles exist does not mean they are complete. Don't be afraid to check LOAF's list of sources and then the article to make sure everything is included.
 
Hence why I said in a passable state- I've been going through and updating the pages I've been working on for S*S at the very least. I have doubts that I'll be getting much of anything up to "complete" state off my resources for this week.
 
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