Wiki Policy Proposals – Bohemia Interactive Community talk

Image Restrictions

I'm thinking we will need to limit the number of images Mods' can have per page to prevent a mass uploading of images. I'm thinking about a number of of 5 - 7 images limit. Assuming 1 -2 pics for logo, 4 pics max for screen shots. It isn't a problem yet, but could in the future. Thoughts? hoz 17:00, 20 July 2006 (CEST)

Sounds like a good number. But can that restriction be limited to just Mod pages? After all, I could imagine somebody putting up pages listing all units, with descriptions and pictures, etc. (like [this one] for VBS1), which could be quite useful. --Kronzky 17:23, 20 July 2006 (CEST)

Yes this would apply to the user pages as well. Again these are just thoughts. Thanks for the input. hoz

Talking about images - what would the chances be of allowing other content to be uploaded (e.g. PBOs, P3Ds, SQMs)?
It would be quite useful for examples and tutorials, so that one wouldn't have to rely on outside sources.
Of course, the danger would be that this could turn into an addon-depository... --Kronzky 18:14, 21 July 2006 (CEST)

IMHO PBOs aren't common part of tutorial, so they shouldn't be upoadedable. All other file types you listed above are simple text - probably uploading compressed files (zip, rar, 7z, not PBO - other formats are more easy to manipulate with and we don't want be addon repository) can be useful. Size limit for this archive must be strict, I think < 30KB should be enought for scripts. (100 lines of code - 1.3K zip archive, 2000 lines - 26K). How for P3Ds? --Djura 20:35, 23 July 2006 (CEST)

The reason I was suggesting PBOs was that we could be sure that their content would be OFP specific, whereas with zipped formats people could be uploading all kinds of crap. Via a PBO you could upload mission files, addons, or even islands. And since tutorials should only use standard textures anyway, all an addon-PBO would contain would be the P3D and config file anyway.

If you do wanna use zip files for uploading P3Ds you would probbably need a size limit of at least 10K. I just checked a few of my very basic test vehicles (that are really' bare bones platforms), and they compress to between 10-20K --Kronzky 23:38, 23 July 2006 (CEST)

In PBO can be IMHO .doc as well. But I agree now with PBO's as ideal format for uploading. And about size limit, 0,5MB shoul be enought for examples and not enought for addons. --Djura 09:43, 24 July 2006 (CEST)

Downloads - category, list or anything else?

I'm confused about Category:Downloads. In my first idea it should be only list of link to pages, witch use Template:Box Download. If we want special page with all downloads, it shouldn't be category page, it should be sipmle list. IMHO the best solution is to have download boxes at pages witch offer download, category Downloads shoul be category for this pages and all downloads have at Download list too. Do you agree? --Djura 19:26, 23 July 2006 (CEST)

move talk converation to here, no need to bug Suma's talk, we can discuss here and try not bug BI when they can be busy building ArmA, from my understanding we are to try and run the wiki as a community and BI will guide us if we need guideance. On the note of download links, I'm not sure we want the Wiki to be come a respository of download links that maybe prone to failure. There are other sites that host missions and addons. Just some thoughts. hoz 19:57, 23 July 2006 (CEST)

Wiki should descript products and allow possibility to retrive them. I don't want create huge link repository... --Djura 20:05, 23 July 2006 (CEST)

Yeah - There are enough addon-sites out there already. They're doing a pretty good job, and I don't see why we should be duplicating their job. There's also enough redundance so that even if one goes down, most addons would still be readily available from others. --Kronzky 23:49, 23 July 2006 (CEST)

Templates

I read somewhere I think on Wikipedia about some naming conventions used for templates. How about some thoughts? Each template should contain a usuage summary and an example. hoz 21:41, 24 July 2006 (CEST)

Accepted. :) --raedor 00:21, 25 July 2006 (CEST)

VBS Policy

I think we need some clear guidelines from BI with regard to the VBS policy so that the wiki sysops have a clear message. Do we allow VBS pics on user pages? Do we allow links to VBS sites? anything else? How do we handle such edits, with a template? hoz 18:45, 25 July 2006 (CEST)

Removed the "no edits" proposal: the VBS page is already protected. --raedor 19:04, 25 July 2006 (CEST)

VBS is to be integrated into the wiki in the same manner as other BI products, the only 'rule' I would suggest is to ask people to describe which product they are using when they post to avoid confusion. Yes we will allow VBS pics and links to VBS sites. We would like the wiki to become a resource for all Real Virtuality users, VBS included. The VBS Resources page and forum will remain open for the foreseeable future as an additional resource. Military customers will need to use their discretion. Any queries should be directed to vbs@bistudio.com or the VBS Resources forum at http://www.vbsresources.com/forum - snYpir, Lead Developer VBS2, 11:17, 27 July 2006 (AEST)

My understanding of the Community Guidelines is that in order to protect the interests of the gaming community, to prevent the unfair negative commercial exploitation of community content, and to provide a clear channel for Bohemia Interactive to support the specific needs of military and professional customers, that the guidelines for the whole of the Community site and content is restricted for non-commercial (prohibiting military, government, and other professional) use only. Commercial customers would need to contact Bohemia Interactive directly for their contract documentation and support, to meet their specific requirements and to prevent Intellectual Property contamination. Shinraiden 06:38, 27 July 2006 (CEST)

Edited the VBS policy draft. hoz 18:16, 27 July 2006 (CEST)

It is not up to me to define policies, but I don't see how keeping VBS documentation out of this site would affect any of the issues Sninraiden brought up. I'm sure most members of the community would love to get into contact with "commercial exploiters", and to actually make some money off their creations...;)
As far as illegal content use is concerned - if anybody wants to steal something they wouldn't do it here, but on the addon sites (all they can steal here is information). And if they're trying to use stolen content in a commercial product they wouldn't be able to get away with it for very long anyway (see [DARWARS]). But I don't think commercial clients would be much of an issue here anyway - they don't really use the vbsresource forum to get their questions answered, and I doubt we'll see a lot of them here either. --Kronzky 18:54, 27 July 2006 (CEST)

That's not the case at all, and I've already mentioned on the VBS Resources site in response to your uninformed assumption that the VBS documentation would not be added to the Community Wiki, that the reason it has not been added yet is not because of secrecy, it's for sanity reasons. There's no unified comref to date for VBS, scripting changes are scattered across three other documents in addition to the Resistance comref and those changes are not documented in a harmonious fashion. VBS also uses a different heads and hands structure as well for the man characters, that would need to be documented as well. Furthermore, there's also the relevant documentation for adding Instructor module functionality, as well as Artillery compatibility. Not to mention that BIA's attention, time, and effort is primarily being spent on development.

The aspect of restricting the whole of the Community wiki against commercial usage is to keep things sane, and to encourage the gaming community to submit content. How do you practically determine what words or information in a wiki page are allowed or not allowed for commercial usage? Let's suppose that a user - who doesn't mind that their new fire effect script is used commercially - submits some content to the wiki page. Does he need to add a disclaimer to the page so that "This code may be used commercially"? What if he forgets? Now suppose that another user wants to add some comments, but user B doesn't want that information used commercially. Do you write the page with a disclaimer saying "This part of the page may be used commercially, if you're a commercial user you're not supposed to look at comments below line #23 or above line #53, with the exception of line #42, as the contributor is unknown"? Additionally, there's a fair amount of content already that the individual developers have made it clear that they do not want it used in a commercial setting. Let's take a specific example, Kegetys' fwatch. His EULA states that fwatch may not be used commercially. Now let's suppose that another user makes an addon that uses fwatch, and they don't mind if their stuff is used commercially, and they submit it to the Community Wiki. This is going to cause chaos, revert and edit wars, and make a mess of things, as well as discouraging community participation. Shinraiden 02:05, 28 July 2006 (CEST)

Other File Types

The question arose if people can/should upload videos. I think not, to save some of BI's traffic, as with videos it can get pretty fast pretty full. --raedor 18:43, 25 July 2006 (CEST)

Also request was made for small PBO files used for examples. Personally I'm against it, an external link to one of the great content sites for tutorials, examples should do just fine. hoz 19:38, 25 July 2006 (CEST)

I guess the question comes down to what the purpose of this site is...

Is it an 'educational' resource, to help people build missions & addons, or is it a more general 'marketing' site, to spread the word about BIS products? In case of the first, an occasional video could be permitted if it demonstrates something that would otherwise be impossible to do with descriptions or pictures. If it's the second case, then I guess the more the better...;) --Kronzky 19:59, 25 July 2006 (CEST)

I would say give links, it cuts down on the size of the pages. plus, there are already enough

websites that provide addon downloads. But on another note, having videos demonstraigning

tips would not be a bad idea, there aren't many websites out there like that. -- Sophion-Black 01:48, 26 July 2006 (CEST)

Multilingual articles

Is it already possible to make them and if so, how it is done?

I don't think non-English articles would currently be accepted, since it states in the Guidelines that "this Wiki's offical language is English. Avoid writing in any other languages[...]".

The problem I see with allowing other languages, is it would take a great many people to maintain the different languages and over the long haul would add alot more work and perhaps inconsistencies between articles. I just don't see it happening IMO. hoz 03:32, 28 July 2006 (CEST)