Wiki to help the site maintenance

Spirit

Post by Spirit »

> Think of all the comments that look like: "I think that wA1 bA2 wA3 bT5 should work --- no, but bS3 wR4 blablabla". Why not put these ideas directly in the problem?

Because they might be incorrect. Maybe it is an idea to make a sort of trial version where people can ask questions about the problem without altering the problem itself. An online SGF editor would be nice for this purpose and maybe some extra tools to copy whole variations from the trial version to the problem.

I'm not too sure about the idea of enabling everyone to edit problems but I guess it's worth a try.

{Posted by Spirit}
rubilia

Post by rubilia »

Running goproblems.org in the wiki way sounds reasonable to me.

Right now, all a user can contribute is new problems. If this site was a wiki, s/he could care about existing problems, too, so the maintenance part of what is done at goproblems.com by users would be bigger. Although this might increase content fluctuation, I bet it would be a net gain to the average of go problems. Why should users be less careful when editing a problem than when creating it? I don´t think they would.

Since go problems here are something different to mainly text-based pages at Sensei´s Library, a different structure might be appropriate. Here´re some ideas I got when thinking about a publicly editable content concept for goproblems.com - merely sketchy, of course:


Imagine a format showing the interactive board as the central part of each problem, like it is already, but with much more weight on the context. Questions and comments concerning each particular node (and occasionally the overall value of child paths starting at it, if they´re not worth to be spread out) should be given enough space, maybe below the board. The top comments preferably (by convention) would be the ones given by the initiator or other confident players, while more unsure deshis could contribute their ideas beneath, too. That way, the whole discussion would be attached to the actual board view rather than banished to an extra page, and it would be very convenient to see the comment´s references in the diagram.

Instead of discussing a 10 moves deep variation in one single lengthy text comment, it could simply be added to the sgf with remarks or questions along the moves (wherever useful). Other people than would be able to answer any of these remark at it´s actual place as well as to illuminate alternatives they consider to be better - without necessarily deleting the worse one. To see what happens on deviating paths is something I really miss in lots problems shown here around.

Of course, some basic structure ought to be provided. E. g., there should be a way to distinguish and filter "main paths" out of the bunch of variations for the users who just want to deal with (or download) what is considered to be an approved solution. However, because each single comment would be related to a particular board situation (or node in the game tree, respectively), the whole discussion would remain easily browsable, no matter how bloated it is.






{Posted by rubilia}
chrise

Post by chrise »

Haven't seen this thread before, but it certainly needs to be discussed. A good example is those problems which need to be fleshed out. I cannot say how many times I've played the first stone on a difficult (and sometimes easy!) problem only for it to say "wrong". This isn't very useful didactically and it would help us weaker players to have our error shown to us. I appreciate that it would take rather too much of the moderators time to fill out each and every problem, so perhaps those who comment on such problems should be given access to amend them.
Or, more moderators... :)

chrise

{Posted by chrise}
unkx80

Post by unkx80 »

Turning goproblems.com into Wiki style is an interesting idea, but definitely we need some recovery system, particularly from Wiki vandals.

To discourage Wiki vandals, maybe we want to restrict the people who can edit any problems to those who registered, at least?

{Posted by unkx80}
chrise

Post by chrise »

"To discourage Wiki vandals, maybe we want to restrict the people who can edit any problems to those who registered, at least"?

This seems a good idea as each person registered has his/her unique password and could be easily traced if they were up to no good.
Accordingly I think it would be great if the people who regularly comment, i.e zinger, BartTM, Hans, santa c, atak, myself, etc. could add their thoughts to the actual problem rather than the comments page. Of course, one would not wish to tread on the problem creator's toes, because as the current set-up stands, the problem creator creates, the commentors comment, and the problem creator amends as necessary. If the creator does not mind other users adding to his/her problem, then I think it would be a very useful tool for the site.
chrise

{Posted by chrise}
fwiffo

Limit to experienced users?

Post by fwiffo »

There could be some sort of karma system that would limit editing to more trustable users to avoid the wiki vandal problem. For example, perhaps you would have to have a 3 active problems on the site with a coolness of 5 or above to be considered a qualified problem editor (maybe not those exact numbers, but that sort of idea.)

Short of full-blown editing ability, it would be nice to be able to suggest groups that a problem should be in.

{Posted by fwiffo}
santa c

Post by santa c »

yeah a wiki's a nice idea... but have to think of stuff like - how will u show what was edited? by writting vars? different colored vars in a slightly more advanced graphical editor? maybe if such stuff was more organised adum'd give it a shot?

on another note - currently the sys lets u know who's the author and such... so ppl might have it as a motivation - what'd motivate ppl otherwise? it may become slightly better but maybe less contributions from the same ppl? i mean some ppl like gecko have a lot of "worked on" problems - problems which creation must've took aloooot of effort...

nothing really stops more ppl of making problems now, does it? can make probs as guest as such... so what'd happen? it may open a window to lazy ppl such as myself and weaker ppl, who can post situations and ask ppl to analyse them hoping there might be sometihng and such... also it'd help weaker ppl fix some stuff... but.. but...

anyway you know what i mean... other than that wiki's a great idea! :)
(maybe working out some more specific ideas's a good idea - can also make a page on senseis, more ppl'd read and comment and such... :)

{Posted by santa c}
ahamay

Post by ahamay »

I've posted some ideas about how to use a wiki for tsumego-databases under senseis.xmp.net/?UGSDatabases. Maybe this could be interesting for you!

Greetings,
Benjamin

{Posted by ahamay}
santa c

Post by santa c »

[quote]
Turning goproblems.com into Wiki style is an interesting idea, but definitely we need some recovery system, particularly from Wiki vandals.

To discourage Wiki vandals, maybe we want to restrict the people who can edit any problems to those who registered, at least?
[/quote]

well like every wiki, it has to have previous versions saved - saving both the info and the sgf...(naturally allowing restorations and such...)
as far as vandalism is concerned... every wiki site has to deal with it... and it seems to be going preety well with the community being in charge... only problem would be the downloaded versions and such, where the problem just can't be messed up - so dlable would be only problems (/versions) with an "ok" mark from a trusted editor (or more if you're paranoid but i belive it should be relatively free and an easy to get status, eventually bringing it back under the contorl of the comunity, simply avoiding first time vandals getting too easily to the published(downloadable) versions where it's a matter of the sites and community reputation.)...

what might be interesting though is the way of the covarage - including "interesting" depth which should be relative to the problems audiences strenght and the language used in describing the problem and it's instructions... can you imagine a goproblems.com where everybody could edit everything? don't you think that variations which a 20k might feel needed in explainning a 4d problem might make it's loading preety slow? ;)

{Posted by santa c}
jocund

Post by jocund »

I think the wiki is a bad idea. Unless of course the submitter of the problem is inactive(2 weeks+).

It is not only the issue of the edits being "correct" but often people will change problems to the point where the original lesson is no longer there.

Or a problem intended to be for 30k might be "corrected" until it is dan strength.

I'm not worried about vandals, so much as the purpose of the problem.

Like in one of my problems, a 9k, 10k, and 30k all agreed that I must have messed up on the "yes" and no" buttons. A large portion of people correctly understood the problem. It was to understand if stones were in seki. They said that it was a seki(even though it wasn't) because white could make it a seki if he played. Had they control to edit, they'd have flipped around the yes and the no, actually making the problem incorrect. But they would have done it thinking they were helping.



{Posted by jocund}
Post Reply