Difference between revisions of "Talk:EDGE"

Revision as of 21:53, 25 September 2018

3DGE merger

Okay, starting the discussion on how the 3DGE page should be merged with the main EDGE article. Namely, how we should go about merging the feature list and extended history from 3DGE over to this article. I wanted to start discussion and gather everyone's opinions on how this should be done - I'm open with whatever the admins think is the best route to go. Corbin (talk)

Usually, the feature list is an overview of the last version, so the 3DGE list should supplant the EDGE one. A History section should be added covering EDGE's abandonment, the 3DGE fork, and the merge back. --Gez (talk) 16:37, 21 September 2018 (CDT)

FTR this is a break with precedent.  If we do what Gez says, I agree the resulting article will be more coherent, but don't we already have pre-DB2 port pages that are clearly (at least in retrospect) experimental branches that were never adopted, or obscure forks later re-absorbed uncontroversially?  Then again maybe we should merge those also, and no one's done it in the past because writing clear English is always the difficult part.  :7

All that said, to expand out the plumbing steps:

• Merge the narrative text, developer credits, categorization, and any external links that are still relevant.  Carefully list all features dropped from 3DGE, because somewhere out there are end users who will never upgrade because that was their favorite feature
• Add a second genealogy box at the bottom, distinguishing "EDGE 1.x" and "EDGE 2.x" perhaps
• Roll your eyes a lot because we're listing EBDoom as a popular mod
• Redirect "3DGE" to "EDGE"
• Move existing "Talk:3DGE" to an archival subpage of this page (borrowing one of Quasar's ideas) and link the latter from here
• Redirect "Talk:3DGE" to here
• Update feature status columns here if necessary, and change "3DGE" to "EDGE"
• Same thing here
• Update EDGE date/version subpages if necessary
• Nominate 3DGE date/version subpages for speedy deletion
• Check internal links to 3DGE to see if any should be renamed/retargeted — this is sometimes a judgement call, for example a mapset created specifically for 3DGE, or a developer who only contributed code while the EDGE branch was dormant
• Same thing for EDGE internal links
• Same thing for the mod subcategory
• Create redirects from other historical names if necessary (e.g. Dream3DGE)
• Update any sidebar links to 3DGE (which don't show up on the above lists)
• When the stable builds are released, add an entry here
• If you need more adversity in your life, figure out how to update this (source code)

Ryan W (living fossil) 15:33, 22 September 2018 (CDT)

Began work on an article merge (please review!!), incorporating much more history (hey, it's interesting!) and appropriately merging from the 3DGE article. Since this preview is hosted on the EDGEWiki, but was developed with the DoomWiki in mind, some things on this preview page might be broken when viewed from 3dfxdev.net (notably, templates that do not exist) - aside from that, it is the first draft I have prepared for presentation. Please review and comment on it appropriately. If needed, we can move it to DoomWiki until its completion (I created it on the EDGEWiki only because I did not want to risk breaking anything on the DoomWiki)- AFAIK merging on this scale has not ever happened before, so I took extra time to try and get it right the first time. I figure we should move on merging the articles first as elegantly as possible, and then work on fixing other links up, but I'm up for whatever is the safest way. :-P Corbin (talk) 19:54, 22 September 2018 (CDT)

You're giving us too much credit for good hygiene.  :>   Just make a user subpage, like this, so you can tell which links are really missing and which are not. Some users are interested in the layout of a page under different skins, also, which cannot be fully tested unless the page is hosted here.    Ryan W (living fossil) 20:31, 22 September 2018 (CDT)

As per your request, I transformed this page to better reflect the state over the one previously linked to the 3DGEWiki. Corbin (talk) 21:41, 22 September 2018 (CDT)

Has anyone been able to review this page and give any feedback? I realized that a lot of the information about the history of the port was mostly obtained through old release logs, old change-logs in versions of DOSDoom, archived websites, etc. - if DoomWiki requires explicit links for citation, I'll have to copy all of the documentation from DOSDoom/EDGE versions somewhere in the current EDGE Git repo to link to. I've also given Andrew Apted a heads up, so please let him change what he needs/wants at will. Otherwise, with the exception of a few grammatical or page errors for that sandboxed article - can Admins/etc give feedback? Corbin (talk) 11:37, 24 September 2018 (CDT)

I took the liberty to change or add a few links in the feature list. --Gez (talk) 04:35, 25 September 2018 (CDT)

This is looking better and better.  I think the history section is already the most detailed of any port article.  If you want, I'll proofread it more thoroughly after it's been live a little while (so people have time to notice it and make/propose any layout changes — no point doing the small tweaks more than once).

To answer your question, explicit links are not needed when the info is right there in the changelogs, or if any user can verify it through playtesting (e.g. Windows installation procedure, maximum display resolution, fixing an obvious vanilla bug).  IMO this applies even to old versions if the source is still available.  Citations start to be important when the original content is difficult or impossible for an outsider to find, like an archived forum or a brief Usenet exchange, or if there is subjective interpretation involved, like the reason a development team had turnover (although honestly if that delves into interpersonal conflicts, we tend to omit details and simply state that someone is either a current or former member).  You can even use an inline bibliography like Wikipedia if you're feeling detail-oriented, but I don't push anyone into that as I am still figuring it out myself. :P

In the mods section, one could argue that some text is redundant to the pages about each specific mod (which exist now but might not have back then), and should be merged out to those.  That's just my opinion however; the last time I tried it, I was immediately reverted.

In general, I recommend not beating your head against the wall trying to make formatting perfect.  For one thing our written rules often don't go down to that level of detail, and you'll only pick up on precedents if you're here regularly (but why would you do that, with a huge development project and your own wiki?  :>  For another, we supposedly have a functioning edit review process to rein in style issues before they get out of control, once the initial draft has been cleaned up.  Hope that all makes some sense, and thanks for thinking of doomwiki.org during a major release!    Ryan W (living fossil) 21:52, 25 September 2018 (CDT)