User talk:MILSTD

hi MILSTD.. I've created a new project http://code.google.com/p/flightgear-future/

The idea in my mind is to create a "proposal list" for the future., ie not bugs//

I only realise this a few days ago, and indeed would be a cool environment. I think inbetween developers and pilots. kids etc..

I wish to make you the admin/editors etc of that, so we can get a grip of the future.

Pete [ac001]

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SORRY, I apologise

pete

http://www2.navigraph.com/www/news.asp

Hi there.

CAN you PELASE REFRAIN from making changes to stuff you do not understand or know about.

Its rather silly and stupid that you keep adding "stuff", which generally does have little relevance to the content..

And IDIOT example is the recent change to the GIT page.

If you actually looked and RTFM, let alone actually USE it, then git is a disributed SCM whereas CVS DEFINATELY IS NOT.

Seems strange that you want to make changes that are irelevant..

ac001, without pointing out the obvious: What exactly are you referring to at all (which edits)? I'd be surprised if I should have added anything wrong about git or CVS, having used both systems for a number of years now both privately and professionally, and being quite familiar with their differences, having used CVS for over 10 years now and having in fact contributed to git in the past. I don't think I wrote anywhere that CVS is a distributed SCM (because it clearly is not), if I really did (and you can point me to the corresponding change in the edit history), it was most certainly a typo or a whole number of words missing. So, I would really appreciate it if you could point me to those of my edits that you are referring to, which are in your opinion "idiotic", "silly", "stupid" or just "irrelevant stuff" where I missed to "RTFM". Thank you in advance for actually following up your claims with hard facts. If I did mess up anything somewhere, please do feel free to revert my edits or point me to the corresponding pages, so that I can undo my changes myself, I apologize if that should have really been the case in some of my edits, but given the plethora of edits I have done here, it is of course very well possible that I added inaccurate contents, especially because these are often based on previous discussions which are copy/paste-converted to the wiki format for documentation purposes. However, please also be advised that it is usually easier to get along with people by keeping your tone civilized, it is just not helpful or constructive to yell around if you want to achieve something, even when you are right (but especially not when you are wrong). Thanks for your comments however!--MILSTD 14:16, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

Edit, I just took a look at the article that you mentioned, if you take a careful look for yourself, you'll probably see that the offending edit was not done by me: http://wiki.flightgear.org/index.php?title=FlightGear_and_Git&diff=21597&oldid=21533 Can you point me to any other of my edits that you disagree with?--MILSTD 14:21, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

Hi Milstd, hope we can be friends please.. and I apologise..

I am working on some tutorials as an Idea.. maybe even "Flight College"...

Your feedback, suggestions, corrects etc would appreaciated

Its in my sandbox here [[1]]

Pete 'ac001'

Show preview

Hi Milstd,

You're very active on the wiki since some time. It's really good if you add things, but whould you please first look if the page is good (Show preview) before saving it? I saw you edit pages often 3-4 times within 30 minutes. Would you please try to collect some info, place it all in an article, show the preview and than save it in once.

That's easier for all of us.

Thanks for your understanding,

Gijs 09:21, 6 March 2008 (EST)

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Hi, I'd really love to make more comprehensive edits at once, however due to the current state of affairs regarding the wiki, this can be hardly encouraged unfortunately.

Yes, sometimes I do indeed make commits without previewing things but that's mostly because of the latency involved doing ANYTHING on the wiki. And yes, I also find unnecessarily verbose commit histories somewhat disturbing.

However as discussed on the Main page's talk page, very often people will get kicked out or experience lots of other problems and even errors while working on the wiki. Thus making tiny atomic changes and saving them right away seems to be the easiest way to ensure that stuff is actually stored directly. Also, one of the most frustrating things is making significant modifications only to see that your session timed out and contents were not saved.

Apart from that, that's by the way how most wikis usually happen to work; not everybody has the time to sit down and make directly huge modifications of acceptable quality, rather people will often commit minor changes, so that contents will grow increasingly until they justify being refactored accordingly to resemble one comprehensive article, hopefully with an overall improve in quality. All this doesn't necessarily have to happen by one single person, though.

Anyway, you've really done a magnificent job at cleaning up the wiki, it has become so much more intuitive and convenient!

However, some of your modifications regarding my commits could be considered somewhat short-sighted, while I do understand the problem and share the view about empty skeleton pages and stub categories, it is important to view this issue from a wider angle: checking out my commit history (but also the commit history of several other contributors), you might notice that quite often page skeletons are committed to provide a structure and foundation for future contributions using boilerplate contents, sometimes this works right away-sometimes it doesn't.

In fact, some of the page skeletons (i.e. pretty much empty pages) I have created in the past have meanwhile become rather popular and are among those pages that are being consulted relatively often.So, such pages aren't necessarily about immediate usefulness, but must rather be seen as foundations for later additions and to provide a form of structure that is essential to cleanly organize contents.

This approach has in the past indeed worked quite succesfully for various different pages and contributors.

Yes, empty pages can be frustrating from a user's point of view, however on the other hand this is also how such pages get more attention, so that more potential contributors are made aware of a page being requested comparatively often.

So, rather than removing all references to such boilerplate pages or possibly even removing the pages altogether, it might make sense to find a compromise, which might for example entail moving them to less prominent places and putting such items into their own "Currently being worked on" section, but also putting a "stub" attribute on all such pages.

Regarding the removal of various categories that I recently added to several pages, you seem to have a misconception about why I added them in the first place, you may want to check out my user page to find an explanation for the motives behind adding such categories; in short: unless someone is going to step up and replace those sections of the wiki that are currently being abused to implement functionalities that are normally provided by separate dedicated software suites (i.e. bug tracker, FAQ database, aircraft database, knowledgebase system), such wiki contents are not as accessible as they ought to be, it is for example hardly possible to easily search existing bugs, or categorize aircraft by meta information.

The compromise that I settled for was to add corresponding attributes (i.e. categories) to each page in order to eventually be able to at least refine searches using such categories, so that for example an aircraft's properties were formally described using categories to determine feature completion. --MILSTD 10:25, 6 March 2008 (EST)

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You say that a Wiki is for tiny additions at a time. That's true, not everyone has got the time to make a large article at once. But you certainly do because you're working 30 minutes on one article, but you do it in 5 pieces or less. I've got problems with the Wiki to. It's not always working correct at the moment. But you could save the article (just copy the code with Ctrl+C) before showing a preview. If you're kicked out than you could simply refresh and paste (Ctrl+V) the code back in the editwindow.

Empty pages aren't needed. If you just place a wikilink at some pages to an article that doesn't excist (yet) it's good. Everyone could see that the article is empty (it's a red colored link) and it appears in the Special:Wantedpages list. People who want to add articles could search this list and they'll see the article you've placed the links for. This way it's easier for all of us to see if an article excists or not. If you make a page with only some headings it looks like the article excists while it isn't.

I agree with you that some more categories are needed. But it's not needed to make a categorie with only one or two articles in it (unless you're sure there will be soon more articles fitting in that categorie). I'm not saying that all your categories are usseless. There are some good ones (and I've made a categorie that was not needed later on to) and I don't wanna encourage you to stop helping us at the Wiki. But I really appreciate it if you would write a little more content on articles rather than just creating them and categorising them.

Thanks and succes with your further wiki-work ;)

Gijs 10:48, 6 March 2008 (EST)

ac001 and heading required :-)

agrees with the fat above that editing pages takes time - and sorry for all atomic commits but was necessary'

• MILSTD - You have put a lot of Input into this wiki. Its fantastic, I take my cap off and thanks, because you must have spent hours and hours on it. I'm a new kid on the block, and having maintained other wiki's eg devmo I understand your frustration sometimes and my motivation is nto to mess it all up.

• Gijs - You are frustrated sometimes with edits lists. I agree with MILSTD that its impossible to edit stuff "en masse". However its cool and look its cool u the editor.

I am not going to get pissed off if u go and mess with my articles. Mass changes here and there are necessary to "edit" the stuff till its clear. Indeed I would prefer to completely Nuke pages. However that means going and reppoing backlinks.

Indeed getting down to the "nitty gritty" and making of a single page and the formating etc correct and easy, as well as presenting and linking is what we need to make it perfect, because it has to "read" and "feel" right. Such as a little snipet of code here there, removal of dead lines, adding a link etc and there is all thats needed. Changing works "here and ther

I have great difficulty in creating pages. I have to actually verbally speak it back to myself a few moments or hours later to make it make sense!! However sometimes knicking it up on the spot because its missing is valuable also.

imho, this is the beauty of the wiki. In that a few years later someone comes along and makes it correct. All the pages are different, and all will have the character of the person who wrote it.

The only goal imho is Glbal World Domination with FlightGear, the most popular and best, without having to spend cash on software (IMHO). So its a kinda chicken and egg zone, and a free for all because if someone has gone to the effort to editing a page, then imho there must be something passion and reason for doing so. I am a victim of that.

So my questions are?

• where is the wiki/TODO list for wiki? - There's stuff looking at /source/docs-mini/ that should be here. Albeit that the source docs have had no love and affection for a long time.
• Also I think that "subject" navigation is important.. Ie being in a "zone" eg the recent property tree, or ATC or AutoPilot. I like the "nav shortucts" links, (ta gijs)
• Categories do the same thing, but not as effectively.

I think we have the following user bases.

Potential Pilot

Indeed I'll put the critisism here, as in my eyes the "front" at flightgear.org looks like some redundant project. from last century.! anyway Whilst the landing Main Page on wiki has no direction for either users or dev.

I am a faithful servant and wish to serve, and realise its a crazy mad world with lots of various mindsets.

damn I clicked the preview button once.. Second time lucky.. ac001 09:33, 11 September 2009 (EDT)