The wiki thread

HaaTa · 09 Apr 2012, 17:17

Added some company/brand stubs.
Still a bunch more left from my collection not in the wikis.

At some point I should go through and add all of the switches I have to the wikis. Sadly, it's a really big job, and I don't have much spare time. Some switches need to be given/found proper names. Most of them need some patent tracking (or at least an attempt). And I need a decent way of measuring force (ideally generating force curves). If anyone feels up to the task (and takes a significant dent out of the work), I may be able to provide some sort of reward.

Companies/Brands still to add:

Heath-Zenith
Top Harvest Internation Corp.
CNF Inc.
Atari Inc.
Dolch Computer Systems, Inc.
Cortron Inc.
Kokusai Electric Co. Ltd. (now Hitachi)
Burroughs (now Unisys)
Convergent Technologies (Was acquired by Burroughs)
Univac (now Unisys) (originally part of Remington Rand)
Sperry (now Unisys)
Xerox
Kaypro
FM Towns
RAFI GB Ltd.
Qume
SMK Electronics Corp.
TEC Inc.
Harris
Amkey Inc.
Computek
Aydin Controls
Quantel Ltd.
Ortek Technology, Inc.
Laser Computer Inc.
Quotron System Inc. (previously known as Scantlin)
Texas Instruments
Victor
Behavior Tech Computer Corp. (BTC)

bhtooefr · 09 Apr 2012, 18:30

Alps is in there... http://deskthority.net/wiki/Alps_Electric

HaaTa · 09 Apr 2012, 18:57

Added Alps_Electric to the company category of the wiki.

bhtooefr · 09 Apr 2012, 19:00

One thing that's a bit confusing... we have Keyboard Manufacturers and Brands (which IMO should be lowercased, although it'll be a pain to do), but should there also be a Keyswitch manufacturers, for companies that make switches?

webwit · 09 Apr 2012, 19:04

Isn't it almost the same as Keyboard switches? There you have the subcategory Cherry switches. In Keyswitch manufacturers you'd have an entry Cherry.

off · 09 Apr 2012, 21:07

webwit wrote:.

OT: Preparing to be reborn?

ripster · 09 Apr 2012, 21:19

I keep saying.....

ALPS!

I HAVE THE BOX IN FRONT OF ME TO PROVE IT!

I could even take the pic with my iPad but still haven't figured this cloud thing out yet. Stupid iOS.

JBert · 09 Apr 2012, 21:57

bhtooefr wrote:
JBert wrote:This problem would be less likely if there was an actual page "Cherry Terminal Keyboards" which has the content.
The fix for that would be to create the page "Cherry terminal keyboards" (note capitalization) and redirect it to the category (again with a colon before).

Wouldn't that make the situation worse? Now you have to explain to the user that they need to link to a redirect page, but use the section of the category page.

Anyway, I believe that real content has no place on a Category page. It should have a short description of the pages it holds or link to a main article, but that's it.
"Real" pages have another benefit: they can contain non-existent items, whereas you always need to make a stub page if you want to add pages to a category.

ripster · 09 Apr 2012, 22:42

Back ONLINE!

Anyhoo I was wrong. Box in teeny tiny print says "Alps Electric (USA), Inc., 3553 N 1st street San Jose."

Bummer, the Number One Keyboard Expert On The Planet HATES being wrong.

<hangs head in shame>

You can see why my first impression was incorrect:

: FLA_7547.jpg (726.55 KiB) Viewed 4149 times

Hmm... SW Maintenance looks the same. Gawd I hate smilies.

JBert · 09 Apr 2012, 23:01

JBert wrote:Anyway, I believe that real content has no place on a Category page. It should have a short description of the pages it holds or link to a main article, but that's it.

bhtooefr · 09 Apr 2012, 23:19

Hmm.

The thing that bothers me about that is, the category is a rather useful tool for automatically maintaining lists.

Then again, if the goal is to get "Category" out of the link name, then one could do {{Category:IBM Model M keyboards}} on the IBM Model M page, I think...

Edit: Actually, looks like stock MediaWiki can't do that.

Unfortunately, you can't create a red link into a category, like you said, but...

JBert · 09 Apr 2012, 23:30

It's not merely about apearances or naming. Because Categories are special things, they introduce linking complexities like Template pages do.

Wikipedia uses lots of List pages in a lot of places as a main entry point to the wiki, e.g. WP: List of features removed in Windows 7 or List of archaic technological nomenclature. Since it is edited by hand, red links are supported, custom ordering and grouping can be used, etc.

However, Categories are nice when you want to group existing pages for "quick" navigation, so that a user who is interested in multiple pages can notice the Categories at the bottom of a page and click on it without having to browse a List page. Since they are orthogonal to the main wiki and ordere automatically, they still have value as an alternative way of navigating.

bhtooefr · 09 Apr 2012, 23:33

And what I'm saying is, especially on a smaller wiki, maintenance is easier if lists are automatically maintained, which requires either a bot or aggressive use of categories.

I guess you could do something like:

Ergonomic keyboards
See also: Category:Ergonomic keyboards

(Text about ergo keyboards)

The problem I see there is, you've decreased usability for no real gain over having Ergonomic keyboards redirect to the category.

JBert · 09 Apr 2012, 23:44

I'm going to sleep on it.

Either way you are decreasing usability when using Categories, whether for the user or for the editor.

bhtooefr · 10 Apr 2012, 00:05

Not all that much, though, because to include a page in a category, an editor just has to do [[Category:category name]] on the page, rather than go to the list page and manually add it.

To link to a category, you can link to the redirect page, rather than to the category itself - which is actually a good practice for reasons as simple as, it allows changing strategies more easily if need be.

webwit · 10 Apr 2012, 00:42

So many ways to organise

I like categories, and I think we can get away with it because we're not wikipedia. I'd look for guidance to wikipedia for a lot of things, but navigation isn't one of them. This is our challenge. I'd like the wiki to be browsable, readable like a book even, and not only by search engine, which is really the only way to find something in wikipedia. For this we need good categories and top/down organisation, which can be done considering our limited subject matter.

HaaTa · 10 Apr 2012, 02:29

Fixed up the current manufacturer/brands pages to have at least the Company Info box and a logo for each.

Now once I get a chance I can work on my list above...

off · 10 Apr 2012, 02:58

webwit wrote:.

ot: devolving then?

webwit · 10 Apr 2012, 03:03

Just disguised as an Easter egg.

002 · 10 Apr 2012, 03:05

Nice one, HaaTa.

I plan to clean up the Realforce section this week and add a bunch of missing stuff.
I was wondering if anyone (possibly Ripster) knows who did the table of Realforce models on the geekhack wiki? I planned to copy most of that (and re-check it) but did not want to tread on anyone's toes.

ripster · 10 Apr 2012, 11:02

Feel free to copy it. Dude doesn't post any more.

All the Ripster Guides in my GH SUBFORUM are open to copying with attribution.

Leave the WATERMARK!

Ripster in Verdana!

Do it quick. Server is about to crash.

002 · 10 Apr 2012, 12:08

I'm actually quite interested to know where he got some of the entries on that table (I'm guessing it was wellington?).
In particular the '87UW No stamp' and '87UB No stamp' of which apparently only 7 were made and the SE0100, SE1100 and SE11B0 which I cannot dig up much information about either.

ripster · 10 Apr 2012, 15:50

I'll check when GH is back up. The Topre dude AFTER me and Welly was the Topre pro that did that huge table.

I never did figure out HTML tables but my HTML skills suck.

My Vbulletin Forum Mod SpamOmatic skills are excellent however.

7bit · 14 Apr 2012, 22:39

JBert wrote:Anyway, I believe that real content has no place on a Category page. It should have a short description of the pages it holds or link to a main article, but that's it.

Code: Select all

KEYBOARDS BY SWITCH
Keyboards with ALPS switches
Keyboards with beam springs
Keyboards with buckling springs
Keyboards with Cherry Switches
Keyboards with Cherry MX switches
Keyboards with Key Tronic switches
Keyboards with Mitsumi switches
Keyboards with NMB switches
Keyboards with Topre switches
Keyboards by switch

Should be:

Code: Select all

KEYBOARDS BY SWITCH
ALPS
beam springs
buckling springs
Cherry MX
Cherry other switches
Key Tronic
Mitsumi
NMB
Topre
Keyboards by switch

same here

Code: Select all

Big Terminal keyboards
Ergonomic keyboards
Gaming keyboards
Hacking keyboards
Industrial keyboards
Keyboards with pointing device
Numpads
Office keyboards
POS keyboards
Rack Mount keyboards
Tenkeyless keyboards

sed 's/[[:space:]]keyboards//'

ps: I'm still against using watermarks in the Wiki!

ripster · 14 Apr 2012, 23:41

Whatever. I'm too lazy to strip mine.

I mean, what incentive is there to slave away on these things otherwise. I can't even FIND the author of these unless I do some digging around in the tabs.

I dabbled a bit more this AM on my Keyboard Font Wiki but am beginning to think the little InfoBox HTML variables were designed by people that know how to program or something.

I'm getting better at Headings and Pics at least. When I grow up I want to learn how to do a Table!

And should I feel BAD if I'm a Stub?

Do it quick. Server is about to crash.

I am rather good at predictions..............

7bit · 15 Apr 2012, 00:25

ripster wrote:... When I grow up I want to learn how to do a Table! ...

Just concentrate on the content and leave the cosmetics to the others.

Tables are super simple if you do copy & paste:

Code: Select all

{|class="wikitable"
| Col 1     || Col 2      || Col 3      || ... || Col m     
|-
|content 11 || content 12 || content 13 || ... || content 1m
|-
|content 21 || content 22 || content 23 || ... || content 2m
|-
|content 31 || content 32 || content 33 || ... || content 3m 
|-
| ...       || ...        || ...        || ... ||  ...      
|-
|content n1 || content n2 || content n3 || ... || content nm
|-
|}

webwit · 15 Apr 2012, 00:28

7bit wrote:BTW:

Code: Select all

KEYBOARDS BY SWITCH
Keyboards with ALPS switches
Keyboards with beam springs
Keyboards with buckling springs
Keyboards with Cherry Switches
Keyboards with Cherry MX switches
Keyboards with Key Tronic switches
Keyboards with Mitsumi switches
Keyboards with NMB switches
Keyboards with Topre switches
Keyboards by switch

Should be:

Code: Select all

KEYBOARDS BY SWITCH
ALPS
beam springs
buckling springs
Cherry MX
Cherry other switches
Key Tronic
Mitsumi
NMB
Topre
Keyboards by switch

same here

Code: Select all

Big Terminal keyboards
Ergonomic keyboards
Gaming keyboards
Hacking keyboards
Industrial keyboards
Keyboards with pointing device
Numpads
Office keyboards
POS keyboards
Rack Mount keyboards
Tenkeyless keyboards

sed 's/[[:space:]]keyboards//'

You're probably right. Bit repetitive texts now. My main fear was/is that it would be a bit disorienting if you have (for example) three boxes with an "Alps" entry, and the meaning depends on the title of the box. So you have to look at the link, and at the box title.

webwit · 15 Apr 2012, 00:52

ripster wrote:I mean, what incentive is there to slave away on these things otherwise. I can't even FIND the author of these unless I do some digging around in the tabs.

What incentive is there to slave away with a pseudonym?
What incentive is there anyway for a hobby, since you don't get paid?
Do you seek fame among the bouncing visitors from google? They don't register your pseudonym, just like you don't register the authors of most stuff you search for on the Internet.
An incentive would be to seek fame and recognition in the keyboard communities, as a good wiki author. For example, daedalus wrote some pretty good IBM articles.

Wait. Skip all that. Wikipedia is all about your edits/moderations count, bitch. Best bitches have the highest count and most respect. I think they get ranks based on old Third Reich titles, such as Reichsmoderationsleiter, but this might be slightly inaccurate (citation needed).

webwit · 15 Apr 2012, 01:01

@7bit
Looks much cleaner now!

7bit · 15 Apr 2012, 01:07

We can make the boxes smaller and get 3 next to each other which would look much better.