A Single Keyboard Wiki

[IndexPlusPlus]

I believe that for the sake of the keyboard community, there should be a single place to gather knowledge about keyboards, which is contributed to by all keyboard communities. I'm not saying that you should ditch the wiki you already have, but at least duplicate some content.

This link has more information.

[Muirium]

When another keyboard wiki that's worth jack shit compared to DT's shows up, that is…

The problem with "duping content" (which we see very frequently here when people cross post something from GH and don't even get the forum syntax right) is that socially speaking there's always a canonical place to go. Why look at poorly maintained snapshots when you can go read, and crucially add to, the real thing?

Obviously, I don't think we have nearly as convincing a Balkanisation problem as you describe. In fact, I'd argue the current state of keyboard wikis in general is more the need to learn wiki-speak than it is an absence of a single place to go. Ive tried and failed in it several times over the years, over many topics, not just keyboards. Even Wikipedia is inaccessible to so may of us as potential contributors.

[IndexPlusPlus]

When another keyboard wiki that's worth jack shit compared to DT's shows up, that is…

I would agree that DT's is the best right now, but there is still good stuff on /r/mechanicalkeyboards and the geekhack community have some great knowledge.

[Miko]

Honestly, I don't see the necessity. The GH wiki is dead and empty. The reddit wiki is IMO a bit strange and the DT wiki is nice and reasonably maintained. Unless somebody pulls changes semi automatically (and reviews them) this does not have a chance. And if it has, I'm not sure if reddit and DT blend well together. Looking at two different resources is not too bad either, IMO.

[Grond]

I think the only place where it could make sense to duplicate the DT wiki is Wikipedia itself.

[webwit]

Dear Wikipedia,

I feel that for the benefit of the people, the users of separate wiki should collaborate to contribute content to a central wiki (putting our differences aside!). I'm not saying that you should ditch the wiki you already have, but it would be such a help if it was all in one place. To discuss it, I've created the subforum deskthority.net/duckWiki for the purpose of neutral discussion that isn't in the 'homeground' of any particular site. We will discuss where I will host this all later.

[7bit]

As far as I understand, all the good people are here at DT and the bad ones are over at GH, so the relevant information will get into our wiki anyway.

X The forum you selected does not exist.

[Halvar]

There's a different approach already in use to make the combined knowledge of the whole keyboard community accessible over a single website! It uses technology hardly differentiable from magic to consolidate all the different approaches of making keyboard knowledge available on the web in one single search-driven GUI, easily accessible over the page http://www.google.com .

[Muirium]

Google is Your (creepy, intrusive, power hungry, monopoly) Friend.

Wikipedia, meanwhile, besides all this, just pisses me off over its misleading fundraisers. Anyone remember the time they said they were raising enough money to run forever? That went quick…

[Halvar]

Also relevant: http://xkcd.com/927/ (most IT workers will probably know what this links to without even following the link...)

[Broadmonkey]

IndexPlusPlus actually linked to that xkcd in his "This link has more information." found in the OP, which I found ironic.

But on to the real deal.
While there is of course some good stuff on reddits wiki, the only reason it exists (as in, is even worth a look) is because Ripster got kicked from GH. Both Geekhack and Deskthority is in a silent agreements that the main wiki is found at deskthority.net/wiki, It's not something the community is divided over. The DT wiki is also very much used by the Asian KB community as I understand.

The weird kid in this is reddit, with its anti geekhack propaganda and "number one keyboard site in the world". You guys are welcome to join the community, just leave your "for keyboard science"at the door.

[002]

The DT wiki is far and away the best and most comprehensive keyboard wiki. We are proud of it because we know it's good. It will only get better because Daniel thinks it's bad. No-one can compete with it unless they steal our leprechauns

The /r/mechanicalkeyboards wiki, while useful in some respects, is more like a collection of guides. There isn't a Wikipedia page for "How to walk with a swagger". Even if we wanted to combine all the content of the three repositories, a lot of their content simply wouldn't be appropriate in wiki form -- it'd be more appropriate as pinned topics or threads, and maybe as references on wiki pages.

CPTBadAss, who was at one stage (not sure any more) in charge of organising the wiki content at geekhack, also made the effort to contribute to the DT wiki. It seems it was worth his time to put it in a place where people know to look for information on keyboards.

DT wiki is number one, and duplicating the content from it would be such a huge undertaking with the end result being that the DT wiki would be somewhere else...pointless.

Spoiler:

alphaandtheomega.png (23.26 KiB) Viewed 8154 times

[jacobolus]

The reddit wiki is pretty ineffective IMO. It’s just a bunch of links to ripster’s various reddit posts, which are full of idiosyncratic and sometimes misleading information. Reddit in general is a great site for surfacing quick news or little amusing pictures. It’s terrible at real conversations or community building. Great if you want to show off some pretty pictures of a keyboard or something and get quick validation: sort of a public version of a facebook wall. Basically useless if you want to collaborate or get useful feedback or talk about anything technical. The /r/mechanicalkeyboards community in particular seems to be mostly gamer kids.

The great thing (but also the unfortunate limitation depending on how you look at it) about the deskthority wiki is that it focuses mostly on documenting existing keyboards and facts, so there’s not much information about modding keyboards, making new keyboards, explanations about how to take things apart, etc.

As far as I know there’s nothing much left at the geekhack wiki. What’s there is very incomplete, little stub pages.

Among the two forums, geekhack is larger and more active, so a more useful place to work on collaborative or technical problems. Deskthority is great if you want to connect with Europeans. In general my impression is that geekhack has a bit more of a “building stuff” culture and deskthority has a bit more of a “collector” culture, but obviously there’s good representation of both groups on both forums.

The best way to find information about keyboards is to do a google search for:
«search terms» (site:geekhack.org OR site:deskthority.net)
Then if there’s anything useful in the deskthority wiki or in a forum thread, it’ll pop up.

[IndexPlusPlus]

OK, So I'm back. I've read all your responses, and they are pretty fair. But I would like to go along with this project anyway because I think it has merit and support. Also, I'm bored. However, I would need permission to duplicate content from your wiki. Can I? And where can I get official permission, as such?

[Halvar]

I think it has merit and support.

I found the rejection in this thread to be as unambiguous as it gets. If you're bored it would be more constructive to find out something about keyboards that is documented in neither wiki and document it (in any of them or in your own).

[kbdfr]

[…] Also, I'm bored. […]

Well, of course, if this is an argument, why not?

Seriouly: I see no post in this thread supporting your idea.
And DT being a club, I think it is up to the members to grant you such permission.
I for one am opposed to it.

[IndexPlusPlus]

Sorry, clarification. I've found support at GeekHack and /r/MechanicalKeyboards, but not here. With all respect. I'd put it down to the fact that you are too proud of your own wiki to support a new one.

[Madhias]

OK, So I'm back. I've read all your responses, and they are pretty fair. But I would like to go along with this project anyway because I think it has merit and support. Also, I'm bored. However, I would need permission to duplicate content from your wiki. Can I? And where can I get official permission, as such?

So you gonna make some copypasta because you're bored, and this copypasta then will be the single source for keyboard information.

Beware: the keyboard gods and the Great Keyboard Oracle patronize the DT Wiki.

Sorry, clarification. I've found support at GeekHack and /r/MechanicalKeyboards, but not here. With all respect. I'd put it down to the fact that you are too proud of your own wiki to support a new one.

I also read the GH thread, but don't see much support there either. Even the DT Wiki was mentioned as the very first answer of your question or proposal!

[002]

Sorry, clarification. I've found support at GeekHack and /r/MechanicalKeyboards, but not here. With all respect. I'd put it down to the fact that you are too proud of your own wiki to support a new one.

I think most people are probably wondering why you would even bother. Even if you took all the content from here and put it in another place, you're going to need people to maintain and add to it...good luck with that. Drumming up support even here is hard enough.

I don't even know why you feel that DT wiki is closed off from others anyway. Anyone can contribute to it so why not just start moving all the other stuff from mechkeyboards and geekhack to here? It will be a lot easier to do that than to move everything from here elsewhere.

[webwit]

I find it funny that before yesterday you didn't know of the existence of the deskthority wiki (and still don't seem to know it's open), then post something lazy here with a link to another site, not providing us with any incentives, with the apparent idea that we must pro-actively go to github and reddit to discuss donating the wiki to someone who has never contributed and no track record of running such a thing, because we are partisan, after which you partisanly put us down as too proud. Yeah, that will work.

[Findecanor]

IndexPlusPlus: No offence intended, but... Who Are You? You register here only to ask us to provide our stuff to you. That is somewhat rude forum behaviour, whatever it is you ask.

I would not be against merging the GH and DT Wikis and putting the result in a separate entity. In fact, I suggested that myself when the DT Wiki was new and the new GH wiki was not much more than a front page.
These days, it is almost as if the Deskthority Wiki is the main feature on this site, with an adjoining forum where we discuss how to do the Wiki. So, I don't think it is a very important issue any more.
When this Wiki was new, there was a great need because the old Geekhack "Wiki" had been taken down. Some of the stuff I first entered here was info copied from the old GH articles I got through archive.org's WayBack Machine. Some info that was entered in the DT Wiki recently is info that was first entered into the newer GH Wiki, and vice versa. The big strength of the Wiki though is not just the info, but the organisation, that the articles are indexed and cross-linked: a lot of work has gone into that.
When/if this site goes down in the future, there will probably still be a copy left somewhere (archive.org if not elsewhere), so that a new Wiki could be bootstrapped from it.

[Grond]

Maybe he's just looking for a Ping! award nomination.

[IndexPlusPlus]

I find it funny that before yesterday you didn't know of the existence of the deskthority wiki

OK, OK, so you guys don't like the idea. Fine. But where did you get that from? yes, I did know about your wiki, and yes, I did use it.

[JBert]

There's the matter of content; who transfers what and how.

But there's also the the fact that it needs as host, backups, software upgrades, anti-spam measures, maybe a technical transfer of user accounts, ...
In case of Deskthority, there's also a club bank account where the money is drawn from and the volunteers are recruited through the forum, but how so for a separate entity? Who's willing to take care of all that and can they prove they're capable?

[Muirium]

So a guy shows up, without introducing himself. Sounding like a know it all and a bit of an ass (just like me!) he invites us to take the risk to trust him — someone we literally know dick about — to go with something new because… something, something, needs more fragmentation? When people point out how daft the idea is — as it attempts to fix a situation which only looks broken if you put on beer bottle glasses — he claims he's getting great support for it. And when people point out he's deluded, he wonders why we assume he knows nothing about the wiki and its culture he's shown zero sign of understanding about.

There's too many clowns here in Edinburgh at the moment for me not to see a pattern…

There must be other fields of human knowledge which need their wiki saviour. Especially all those stuck with nothing but Wikia. (Bloody awful site.) They'll be more thankful, and a good example to show whatever it is you have in mind.

[kbdfr]

Sorry, clarification. I've found support at GeekHack and /r/MechanicalKeyboards, […]

Your proposal yielded one positive answer (out of 8 contributors to your thread) at GeekHack, and two positive answers (out of 6 contributors to your thread) at /r/MechanicalKeyboards.

I wouldn't really call that "support"

[matt3o]

I'm not participating to this thread until Daniel posts an at least 10k words essay on this topic.

[002]

Dan already ripped ripster a new one on the related /r/mechanicalkeyboards thread
I think anything further said in this topic is just overkill.

[Daniel Beardsmore]

Also, I'm bored.

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