Celebrating 1M Day!

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We are celebrating. Not 100 champagne glasses but 1 Million Wiki page views. This has been achieved today - it's 1M Day.

We would like to thank you for 1 Million page views, and in your name we would like to thank all the editors for creating content worth viewing.

1M Day seems like a good occasion to have a look at the Wiki's past, present and future.

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Don't want to read the wall of text? Here's the shortcut:

• EntropiaPlanets Wiki reached 1 Million page views
• That might be a small step, but we are celebrating anyway
• Have a look at some future goodies: Project:Development.
• Go and fill the EP Wiki

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The Past...
"any idea what that wiki is supposed to do?"

The EP Wiki started on 17 October 2009. It was carving out a miserable existence until some guys discovered what great fun it can be to explore the capabilities of the wiki together and work on content cooperatively, no matter whether anyone would look at the pages. Let's call it the wiki effect.

Edit after edit, image after image, template after template, despite all the struggling with the limits and peculiarities of MediaWiki -the software running the wiki- it slowly picked up pace and arrived at the present.

The Present...
"look at this great template I created"

Fortunately, MediaWiki does not only have limits and peculiarities but also many exciting featues and advantages. One of which is the fact that it is also the software running Wikipedia -the mother of all wikis- and therefore assures a continuous and sustained development. In functional interplay with extensions and custom templates the possibilities are nearly endless.

... Advantages of a true wiki

Let's have a look at a couple of those advantages by assuming we would want to create a guide for an EU topic and compare the wiki to the host most people still choose to put their guides on: forums.

Wiki	Forums
can be created cooperatively	can be created by 1 person ONLY
can be updated by anyone	can be updated by the thread starter ONLY
can have linkable headlines (anchors)	can NOT have linkable headlines
can easily include sortable tables	can HARDLY include tables at all
can easily include image galleries	can ONLY include several single images
can easily include Youtube videos	can easily include youtube videos
can easily include RSS feeds	can NOT include RSS Feeds
can easily include image maps	can NOT include image maps
can incorporate subpages	can NOT incorporate subpages
can easily include content from other pages	can NOT include content from anywhere else
can share style and structure with other guides by templates	can NOT do anything alike
can be categorized and bundled with other guides	can ONLY be organized by forum structure
there is much more	there is NOTHING more

Do we have a winner?

Let's have a look at a few use-cases and exemplary pages with elements like lists, images, image galleries, videos, tables, feeds, etc.

• location guides: Calypso Gateway (image map on this one)
• documentation of ongoing/past events: Harbinger Event
• simple collections of data: Glossary

... Editability issue?

We received many hints that editing is too complicated. Personally I (Tass) would say it is not. Basic editing is as easy as writing forum posts:

1. Click "Edit"
2. Type
3. Click "Save page"

And by basic editing you can learn advanced editing intuitively. Those both -easy start and intuitive advance- are essentials of the success that is Wikipedia.

However, the calls for more convenient editing have not been unheard. Which leads us to an outlook on the wiki's future.

The Future...
"admin, can you please get that extension working"

To start this with a citation: "future is brighter than ever"! But how does it look exactly?

We have been evaluating options for making editing easier for quite some time already and this process is ongoing. Some little steps have been taken already by implementing a few extensions and gadgets, further bigger changes and additions are in prototyping phase. How about some hints and previews:

... Dialogues

For adding links and tables, popup dialogues have been enabled which help you a little bit and avoiding the nasty thing which is wiki markup. The use of those dialogues have to be enabled in my preferences, so anyone can decide whether or not to use them.

... Forms

Forms are quite similar to dialogues, but unlike dialogues, are used to edit specific content. This is a prototype feature and it will need a massive effort to implement it for larger parts of the wiki. When editing with forms is available this will be indicated by tiny little pencils and clicking them will lead you to the forms. An introduction on the edit pencils can be found on Project:Development and you can try out editing with a form on Planet Arkadia (Planet Info Overview in the top right corner, edit pencils to the right of the headline).

Another form is currently available to structure data of VU pages. Have a look at how easy wiki editing can be when using forms: Version Updates

... Mapping

With more and more planets and areas emerging, quality maps will be badly needed. We are in the process of building prototypes which shall lead to a mapping functionality in a not too distant future. You can have a look at one of those early prototypes on Project:Development.

... Portals

When it comes to organization of content respectively, entry points to information Portals are definitely an option to consider. We are aiming at portals that can be managed manually or fully automated or a mix of both. What the hell do they mean by "portals?" Have a look at this little preview: Portal:planet Arkadia

And you?

Regarding those improvements in general and to editing with forms especially we would like to point out that flexibility of the wiki is still paramount. Meaning, when forms will hit the wiki everyone shall also be able to create his own forms with unique functionality. When mapping will hit the wiki everyone shall be able to place any map he wants on any page he wants.

But what do you want? Got some inspiration from the prototypes? Further ideas? Let us know here: EntropiaPlanets Wiki Forum

And if you didn't try wiki editing yet, take this opportunity soon. For a litte trying you can just use the Playground. But you are really encouraged to edit the content pages. It still stands: You cannot break anything, everything can be made undone with just 3 clicks.

EntropiaPlanets Wiki

A big congratulations to RAZER and Tass, who have relentlessly been adding content and finding ways to improve the Wiki experience.

As they state, we have been working hard behind the scenes to figure out more intuitive ways to wikify articles and information, and I do believe that we are currently on the right track to get this done.

1 million pageviews in less than two years is indeed an incredible amount of views :)

Again, congratulations to RAZER and Tass in particular, but also to everybody who has ever made a contributio to the EntropiaPlanets Wiki, and thank you so much for helping to make this possible :)

Calypso Beer for everyone!

wow - amazing :) gratz!!!

Congratulations on the 1M page views of the EP Wiki ... that's quite an accomplishment.

I've been behind the scenes and have witnessed just how hard these guys have worked to improve the process, and make the EP Wiki more user-friendly. No stone is unturned, and possibilities are always being researched - it makes my head spin to read the work-related interaction these guys do, so I sort of shy away from that content because it's all Greek to me. :p

Tass and RAZER have certainly been relentless, but don't short-change yourself with this ongoing labor of love Peter, because you've been a die-hard, dedicated contributor as our admin in this respect as well - I see it. :)

Now ... I think it was our beautiful and all-around awesome lady admin (Lykke) who stated somewhere, that it would be nice if our membership count was this high. :D I've noticed that membership has been on the rise recently, so perhaps this is a good sign that we are experiencing a nice boost and that it will continue. There is much to look forward to.