The wiki thread

[webwit]

I think they use both haha. And that we had this discussion before, possibly in this thread. I agree to stick with one. If I remember correctly they were named after a mountain range nicknamed the Japanese Alps, because it was an English sounding/pronounceable name (not an acronym) which was good for the western markets, and it's only capitalized in the logo. So lets stick with your suggestion.

We also still have the problem of inconsistency of capitalization in titles.

[bhtooefr]

I've personally been trying to use initial capitals, capitals for proper nouns, but otherwise lowercase, simply because it's a pain to link to [[Every Word Capitalized|every word capitalized]] article names inline with text.

Which actually means I should switch Infobox company and Infobox Company around, and IIRC most articles use the lowercase. That's a simple redirect for now, though.

My strategy with this stuff is, use a redirect to the correct capitalization, then find stuff pointing to the old, and nuke it. Risks double redirects that way, but such is life, and MediaWiki does automate finding those.

[webwit]

I always thought wikipedia used this style, but I just found out this is not the case - it's the same lower case style as used on the main forum:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia: ... tle_format

[bhtooefr]

Yeah, Wikipedia goes heavy on the lowercase for ease of linking reasons, I think. If you need more caps, you can always link the hard way. And, MediaWiki handles initial capitalization for you, so you can use either inline.

Also, ugh, I feel dirty, I just wrote a rubber dome stub.

[ripster]

Yeah, Wikipedia goes heavy on the lowercase for ease of linking reasons, I think. If you need more caps, you can always link the hard way. And, MediaWiki handles initial capitalization for you, so you can use either inline.

Also, ugh, I feel dirty, I just wrote a rubber dome stub.

ON THAT ALPS THING!

http://www.alps.com/usa/index.html

Contact us - ALPS ELECTRIC(NORTH AMERICA), INC.

And...

http://www.alps.com/e/about_alps/histor ... y_top.html

Sent From Brother Ripster's iPad

[webwit]

My guess is different religion. "The Old Style" came from print. "The new style" is easier to read on screen. Don't mind much wich one (prefer new style myself), as long as it is used consistently.

[bhtooefr]

Actually, that in itself is a stylistic thing, that is IIRC due to Japanese handling of Latin scripts.

You'll notice that they all-caps joint ventures with companies that are definitely not all caps in their home countries, too.

[ripster]

This was the other big date. Fuck Fukka it's Fuhua.

2000 Mar
Thirty-year joint venture ended with Forward Electronics Co., Ltd. of Taiwan in share transfer.

[bhtooefr]

A nasty stylistic issue is Key Tronic. Er, KeyTronic.

It appears that they used Key Tronic in the past, but then changed to KeyTronicEMS. However, when they made the interesting keyboards, they had the space in their name...

How to handle companies that have changed their name? Use current name, and redirect the old name to the current? Use the name that was in use at the time?

[bhtooefr]

webwit: Saw you started changing things, so I moved the two articles that were using ALPS in their title to Alps versions.

[webwit]

Cheers. We should make you Wiki Master. Daedalus used to be, but he's busy finishing his education or something silly like that.

[002]

finishing his education

pfft wat a looser rite guys

In other news I'm borrowing a decent camera over the weekend and will take plenty of photos for Topre articles.
When I have spare time I'll start contributing to the wiki

[bhtooefr]

Cheers. We should make you Wiki Master. Daedalus used to be, but he's busy finishing his education or something silly like that.

The problem is, I'll quickly lose interest at slogging through killing all of these useless links.

Seriously considering nuking the industry field on every one of these company infoboxes, because we already know every company on there is making keyboards! (It's all stuff copied straight from Wikipedia.)

[bhtooefr]

Another stylistic question...

Cherry MX Black, or Cherry MX black? Or even Cherry MX/Black, or Cherry MX#Black?

[002]

Haha that post sums up why I dread editing wiki articles.
Personally I like Cherry MX Black.

[webwit]

Hmm either Cherry MX Black if we regard it as a name (I like it better) or Cherry MX black otherwise.

Wouldn't fear not getting certain details right. New content and contributors are much preferred at this point, and it's in the nature of a wiki that it get refined and polished later, if someone cares.

[webwit]

Edit: Also, when there's a conflict between US and UK English, I'm assuming UK English wins?

I don't have a strong preference. Maybe UK English because that's also the forum's default.

[bhtooefr]

Got us from well over 300 wanted pages to well under 200.

Mostly by deleting the damn doc references that end up calling like 5-10 pages per template that has documentation. Most of the time, if you're using a template, you either know what you're doing, or know it was taken from Wikipedia, and can just go there to read their docs.

[webwit]

That's why we need a wiki master. Same thing with the categories, lots of stuff was floating in nowhere. Someone to bring order and structure to the universe, and think about and act on bigger issues. The problem is most people just want to add content to one or two pages they know something about, but aren't interested in or oblivious to the bigger structure and the fine details of mediawiki. And that's ok because they are keyboard enthusiasts, not mediawiki enthusiasts. We could get demanding, but then they probably just won't contribute. Especially at this point we mostly need more content. What can be argued against that is that the wiki master shouldn't be the bitch of people who don't clean up and stuff.

[bhtooefr]

You'll note that I'm doing more cleaning than bitching.

I figure if there's a good structure in place, and quick massaging of new content to fit the structure, then the content will naturally follow that structure.

Edit: For what it's worth, this page right here contains pages that need to be created at all. Ignore anything that says Template before it, some of that stuff I can't get rid of easily, some of it I'm working on getting rid of. However, the other stuff? Even if it doesn't match, we need SOMETHING there. If you're not sure if you've done it right, slap a {{stub}} tag on it at the beginning, that'll flag it as something to look at to make sure. If you don't have all the info, but you have some, please make an article, and slap a {[stub}} tag on the beginning.

[ripster]

Need a Wikimedia for noobs page.

So I can't somehow get an already loaded image onto the wiki - I need to use this?

http://deskthority.net/wiki/Special:Upload

This wasn't particularly useful either.

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:Editing_FAQ

[bhtooefr]

Here's the pages you want to read:
http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Managing_files
http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Images

I will note that Wikimedia's page isn't exactly right, because they have different policies (involving uploading to Wikimedia Commons instead).

Generally, follow MediaWiki's directions when you're dealing with anything that isn't a template (MediaWiki is the master project that develops the software that this wiki uses, along with the Wikimedia projects, but Wikimedia has very different policies), and Wikipedia's directions when it is a template (because the templates have been shamelessly yanked from Wikipedia).

[ripster]

Thanks. I'm staying away from Wikipedia. I hear those people are scarier than Keyboard Collectors!

[webwit]

Use that special:Upload page, then include it like mentioned in that page or like you find images in other pages (click Edit to see source, copy/paste, change filename and title).

[bhtooefr]

We should probably standardize on one name for the 122-key Model F, as there's like three or four different ways to reference it.

I will say that I don't like the current way of referencing different models of Model F keyboards outside of the main Model F article. Also, I don't like that everyone's standardized on calling the original PC keyboard the XT keyboard, when it actually came with a machine before the XT.

[Icarium]

I say fix it. Most of the people who "standardized" it probably didn't know better.

[bhtooefr]

I actually like the way that the Model M sub-models are handled - the article for the keyboard is named after the marketing name, not the "Model M" designation.

I think I'm going to switch everything I see to the following standard, in order of most to least preferred:

IBM Personal Computer keyboard
IBM Model F Personal Computer (I'd rarely use this, though)
IBM Model F 83-key (this can actually refer to multiple keyboards)

As another example... the AT board will be, in order of preference:

IBM Personal Computer AT keyboard
IBM Model F Personal Computer AT
IBM Model F 84-key

122-key is an odd case, because there are so many common variants that are, for the most part, basically the same. I think for those I'd actually use IBM Model F 122-key, or maybe IBM Model F Terminal (and group the 104s in, too)

Are there any objections to that standard?

[webwit]

The problem with the cute marketing names is that no one will search for it. People look for IBM Model M, not IBM Enhanced Keyboard.

[bhtooefr]

Well, this IS a MediaWiki install, so it has redirects (and common names could be redirected to the canonical name), and I'm not saying to take away the Model M article, which points to the marketing name.

[bhtooefr]

I should expand on that comment...

So, here's what I'm thinking I'd do.

IBM Model M would be a master index of Model M keyboards. (In fact, it may even redirect to something like Category:IBM Model M.)
IBM Enhanced Keyboard would be the article about 101-key and 102-key Model M keyboards, and if I go with the category approach, would be in the category. Also, all the relevant part numbers may be in that article.
IBM Model M 101-key would redirect to IBM Enhanced Keyboard, and would NOT be in the category. Similarly, IBM Model M 102-key would do the same thing.

So, search wouldn't be broken at all.