Re-making a Wiki: The New LSL Portal

Okay, I'll bite, you trashed it, and you failed to attract the interest or dedication you'd hoped. It is *your* failure to gain support, it was *your* decision to trash the prior work and you would rather moan about how the community didn't follow your brave new vision instead of making additions to *your* dreadfully incomplete wiki. So great, it isn't full of spam, it isn't full of information either. What are *you* doing to remedy that?

It wasn't a brave new vision; the OSS community sees this crap all the time. Someone decides they don't like how someone else is doing something so they fork the project. If they do it well, you wind up with differing implementations of similar quality; if the fork is done with poor stewardship, you wind up killing the original product and the "forked" version sucks. Ten months into the effort and you've got next to nothing to show for it; wasn't quite the ego boost you were hoping for was it?

At best, perhaps you've learned something from your failure. Unfortunately, given your retort, I don't think you've learned a damn thing; your finger-pointing reply is typical of most armchair wankers out there.

I'm glad this thread was necroposted. As a new-ish scripter who tends to use sample code more than documentation, I had it backwards. Since the old wiki has so much more information than the new one, I thought it was the official one.

I'm saddened to see so much acrimony caused by LL not stepping up to the simple task of populating the new wiki. I build IT products for a living, and putting together an acceptable LSL wiki for the community to start from is LINDEN LAB'S responsibility. So we should not be carping at each other about it.

I haven't read the entire thread, so before ranting further let me check ... has LL hired a senior tech writer to facilitate movement of old wiki information to the new wiki? If not, the company is acting hypocritically. To make all these nice noises about teamwork and the value of volunteers and yet, so cripple the scripting community by not making one relatively cheap hire, is hypocrisy.

This task is not rocket science, even considering the copyright issues, and the LSL wiki is not an immense body of knowledge. One good senior tech writer, capable of driving an intelligible review process in tandem with the scripting community, could solve this.

This debate is idiotic, and responsibility for it rests solely with the Lindens.

Hey, knucklehead, I wasn't the one spearheading it. I offered my support. I helped get it started, I helped evangelize it. NOTHING about it is any more *mine* than it is *yours* or *Strife's* or ANYONE else's.

I didn't *trash* ANYTHING. The lsl wiki is STILL out there; it is STILL used today. Hell, *I* still use it. I've NEVER EVER complained about "how the community didn't follow (my) brave new vision", especially since it wasn't *mine* to begin with, so I have no idea where you got that bullshit. It is there. It has begun, just like the original one did, from a need. It will grow if people want it to grow. I just so happen to be one of them, so I offered my support to help make it happen.

What am I doing to remedy its "lack of information"? Well, right now, I am not doing much of anything towards it, because I have significant RL and SL work which is prioritized above it, and has been for a while. I *do* have a project plan to spend some time soon and dump a bunch more code examples and original documentation into it, but I have to finish what I have on my plate *right now* before I can do that.



Yet again, you fail to explain how this is all *MY* effort. I have NEVER EVER claimed stewardship over it. All I wanted was an alternative that *WE* could put our efforts into that wasn't constantly down; something that ALL of us (yes, even you; amazing) could have going forward.

What I see in the OSS community that destroys projects is a bunch of whining naysayers, who contribute little to nothing (sound familiar?) to a project besides their negative opinions on how everything that anybody does that they don't like or agree with is doomed to failure based on their "expert prognostication" capability when they aren't even in the game to begin with.

Nothing I have or haven't done is killing the old wiki. People like you and its current maintainers are doing a fine enough job by yourselves. Want a pat on the back for a job well done?

I wouldn't call articles on every LSL function with a significantly improved format "nothing", but I guess even roses must stink when you're driving the shitwagon.



The only thing I have learned from this is that humans do indeed suck in most cases. If they can't have their way, they have to defecate in everyone else's cornflakes to make sure they know about it. Well, congratulations! We know how much it sucks to be you now.

Guess what? Nothing you've said here will change a damn thing. The old wiki will continue to degrade to the point of unusability, and the new one will finish getting fleshed out and will become the standard. It's inevitable, and neither content nor volume of anything you say will change that simple fact.

I never advocated revolution, just simple evolution. Sure, I too wanted it to be more than it is now, but it is FAR from a failure, in any realistic measure. The difference is that I realize that *I* am the most responsible party for any dissatisfaction I have in it, just as YOU are for yours, and everyone else is for themselves. The capability is there for ANY and ALL of us to make it better. I am going to continue to do so, regardless if you do anything other than sit in your comfy chair and fling poo at the rest of us.

"Hey, knucklehead, I wasn't the one spearheading it. I offered my support. I helped get it started, I helped evangelize it."

Nice post hoc rationalization on all counts. I'm impressed.You didn't "evangalize" it, you "offered" your support but now are too busy, and of course you didn't claim stewardship now that it is an abject failure. Pages documenting every function? Sure, if you consider a single content-free sentence as "documentation" then I'll agree. The only thing you "have learned from this is that humans do indeed suck in most cases."? I pity you.

Please don't make me quote more of your finger-pointing at what others should be doing for SL; it is at least as repugnant as your last couple of posts. Thanks.

Always glad to please.



..and when the work that I am being PAID for comes to an end, I will have more time to devote for it, and I *will* continue to flesh it out, just as I have done in the past. I'm sorry that you subscribe to the notion that free SL > paying SL > RL; I just don't happen to share it.



What else needs to be said for something like llFabs, other than "Returns a float that is the positive version of val."? Not every function needs a fifty page dissertation with 200 examples. The ones that DO need a lot of documentation have it, for the most part (check out llSetPrimitiveParams, or even llParticleSystem, which I wrote, btw).



Save your pity for yourself.. you seem to need it more than anyone else here.



Oh, please, please enlighten us as to "all my finger pointing". While you are at it, try to be fair and balanced as I know you can be (hah) and show where I also point the finger at MYSELF as well.

As far as repugnance goes, you need look no further than your own mirror.

I'm going to pretend the above cat fight hasn't been going on.

There is a joke...
Documentation is like sex: when it's good, it's great; when it's bad, it's better then nothing.

The wiki is open to every user to edit, if you don't like it, you are free to improve it. I have no sympathy for complainers because they could be spending their time improving it instead of complaining about it. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to write wiki articles; though it does help if are writing about rocket science and you want your material to be accepted.

----

My current concern is with the influence Python is having on the documentation. I think it over complicates the documentation and obscures what is important (that LSL is a bastard language and how to cope with it).

Why? Because you were #2 on the project that people said shouldn't be done at all because it would result in this?

Do you have any principles at all?

The insults and inuendo do not help. if you can't say anything nice, don't say a....no, I can't believe I am saying that.

If you look at an wiki.secondlife.com page, and it doesn't have the valuable info that a similar page on a different Wiki has, then add a link.

I've been in this scripting forum every single day since I started scripting, except for a few months when I had no connection and was taking care of a medical problem this year. At first it was asking a multitude of questions, then it slowly changed over to helping others learn. It might be sad to say but two of my most proud moments occured here. The first was when I was able to answer someone else's question the first time. The second was when I was able to post a script that was faster then one of my acknowledged peers.

There is not one single person in this forum on a regular basis that is getting a paycheck from LL. Every single one of us regulars does it unselfishly for the love of scripting and the community at large. We may not always agree with each other and there are some quite lively debates concerning state's and if's and optimizing code. But we are really unique in the world of forums (Talking about the content creation forums). I have been a member of soooooooooooooooo many and have never seen one with so many unselfish people willing to help others. It is extremely rare to see a flame war or a fight escalating to the point of actually trying to hurt another person with words here.

Would everyone please acknowledge that the parties ultimately responsible for where we are at with wiki's don't give a damn about this forum and are not here listening. The new wiki was created because the situation with the old wiki ultimately became untenable. I'm not happy with any of the wiki's but I also am aware that the people that contributed to the new wiki did it for one reason only. They did it to help others, hour after hour, day after day, week after week, with no compensation.

Hurtfull words have been passed here and yet the ones involved have done much to help others. Hopefully in the next couple of days as things calm down some might reconsider and edit the posts that are here.

I hope so because everyone here has my admiration and I don't want that to be tarnished.

Since Malachi was gracious enough to remove his posts, I removed mine as well.

Now that the tempest in a teacup is over, we can get back to focusing on what is important.

If you want to make the "official" wiki better, it is sitting right there. I'll be working on it more again soon, and it will become the best LSL resource available soon enough.

dont worry i have all your post's mirrored ...

kidding

gawd, WHICH one is the "official" one again???

its not lslwiki.net???

Because of the past emotional wars, this thread is not the one that people should read first.

Please remove its sticky status...

Current version of LSLEditor (2.23) has the ability to use 3 options for wiki information:

- lslwiki.net
- wiki.secondlife.com
- Offline wiki information by using a compiled help file.

* The Offline information is made out of the 'Osgeld Barmy' 7-7-7 archive and can also be used without LSLEditor.

-A.

I'm itching to start posting stuff to an LSL wiki.

Any chance of a vote or show of hands or toss of the coin or arm wrestle to come up with a decision everyone can live with as to which one we're all going to support and use? I use RPG stats all the time because it's fast, and has way more content, but if the decision is for the slow, slimmer one, then I'm fine with that, too.

If someone were to do a fresh posting about the wiki, with a poll attached, make it a sticky and let the voting run for, say, 30 days.... that could do the trick? We could say, no opinions, time for exchanging opinions has passed, we just want your vote, what will it be?

I use lslwiki.net (the ancient one), and i've done a few updates to it. but i'm just a hobbyist ... this might actually be a good use for a poll, listing all the known ones.
.

I spoke today with David Linden, and asked him why the official wiki at http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/LSL_Portal was often as slow as molasses in January. I explained that I felt it might lead some people to avoid it like the plague.

He said that they were aware of how slow it is. He also said, "there is a new one in development but we have not been given a new release date, all I can do at this stage is pass comments onto the develpment team."

So, if a new improved one is coming, all we can do is wait as fast as we can, and when it does appear, and if its speed is acceptable, perhaps we might all consider returning to the fold of using it and contributing to it.

I'd say one of the major impediments in scripting in LSL is documentation being all over hell's half acre, as the saying goes.

I vow to use this phrase on a weekly basis.

I think the problem is that MediaWiki is often very slow, but it /should/ be faster than it is, with caching enabled. Most of the pages should be served as static pages. If it is regenerating every page view or even occasionally, it wouldn't surprise me that it is being eaten alive.

It is not so much the speed, it is more the completeness, really, that results in my practically never using the Official LSL wiki and using lslwiki.net instead. I simply get far more information from the latter. I'm sure speed would help but to me it would be pretty irrelevant.

I use both as it is now. There's not a lot missing from the official Wiki that is on lslwiki.net. A lot of history in the comments, perhaps, but the info on the functions is pretty complete for the vast majority of them.

What is MediaWiki?

I've been doing SL scripting, for, oh, just under a year and a half now.

I have a load of stuff I want to add somewhere before I forget all the stuff that I had to puzzle over for various reasons (I'm pretty good at user documentation but shush, don't tell anyone, it's not a particularly exciting task that I want lobbed at me.)

Stuff that if it saves someone just starting out, say, 15 unnecessary mins of headscratching out of 2 hours of the necessary headscratching, then it's worth my time.

But I'm unwilling to post it while stuff is all over the place.

I mostly use rpgstats. It's fast, easier on the eye, etc, etc. But I think I understand that for various reasons it's not worth posting there anymore.

I know there have been various efforts in the past to get a reasonable-sized consensus on what wiki 99% of people are going to use / support, but they all seem to have fizzled out.

IMO LL needs to do one of two things to get the official wiki to really work:

1.) Resolve the copyright issues somehow so that the content of lslwiki.net can be ported over (it is by far the most useful and complete set of documentation as far as -I- can tell, though if they could go a step further and merge info from several of them it would be ideal), or

2.) Actually have a LL employee document things formally by referring to the actual source code (and then possibly using that as a starting point for resident contribution). It is inexcusable in my opinion for the Lindens not to provide documentation for the API they are providing to millions (or hundreds of thousands--whatever) of people. It's the M$ approach, and it stinks. Making your users futz around and document things by trial and error and a few sketchy answers here and there is irresponsible and lazy.

Speeding up the web application itself would be a help too, of course, especially when more users start utilizing it because of fixed content.

P.S.: Chaz - MediaWiki is a popular wiki application used by many wikis, including Wikipedia.

MediaWiki is the software/scripts that run the official Wiki. It's the same software that runs Wikipedia. Wikipedia is definitely not a slow site, so there is little reason why LL's implementation should be so slow.