Revolution

Hello AoE Wikians!

I have a new project in mind, but let me put you in context a little bit before explaining this project. A few days ago Aj visited me in the AoE Online Wiki and ask me if we could merge the both wikis to create a consolidated one. I have still my thoughts about that, so for near future it is out of the question, but not yet totally discarded. When I came here to check how the wiki was doing I encountered with a lot of issues. This should be resolved even before I considered to merge, so I decided to start out a new project.

The Project as you may see in the tittle is called Revolution, it is a remembrance of the Americas independence reflected in Age of Empires III. Why is it called that way? Well mainly because it is a complete change of paradigms in terms of formats, structures, templates, designs and community. And it is not because they are wrong (many of them are mine proposals), but because it is not easy to read. For example:

• Each article is immediately associated with the game on the tittle which is good, but the game is written first, which gives more importance to the game in the article page, and it may mislead the user specially when looking at games' articles.
• The Infoboxes have different format for each game and some of them do not have the same format as the whole site.
• There are only a few Navboxes, most of them are overloaded with links or useless.
• We do not have a MoS, neither guidelines to follow, nor Policy.
• Each article has its own format and do not follow a regular structure among them, there should be at least one format for units, another for buildings, and another one for games.
• Main Page is outdated.
• There are the double of articles than there are images, I know this is an encyclopedic site and that words have more importance, but there is a say where I come from that a good image is worth a thousand words. And just look at the top ten wikis, most of them have more images than articles, and even if they don't at least have a better ratio of Article:Images than AoE Wiki.
• Finally new editors are more likely to come if there are at least updated news and announcements, because it shows an active wiki.

What qualifies me to do this?

1. Well first of all, I'm qualified because I'm willing to do it. But what I think describes best what I've done is that I have been in many wikis, League of Legends, this one, OMD!, Age of Empires Online, etc.
2. I was an active bureaucrat here long time ago when no one else edited the wiki.
3. Not proud of but in the past: I have engaged in edit wars, done public relations problems and deal my share of unproductive edits. Which made me learn about the proper ways on the wikis.
4. I'm a big fan. I have the 4 games with their expansions (AoE, Rise of Rome, Age of Kings, The Conquerors, Mythology, Titans, Age of Empires 3, The Warchiefs, Asian Dynasties) and currently playing the AoE Online closed beta.
5. I know a lot about advanced users parser functions, how to "mess" with tables in the two formats, the templates specifics, etc.
6. I have made about 14 k edits in Wikia, plus Wikipedia (English and Spanish)
7. And finally I have earned the trust a various users in the wikis that I have been. Which I hope to earn here to

What to do?

If you agree to made the revamp here are the project proposals:

1. Rename, merge and split, i.e.
   • From Age of Empires II:Champion to Champion, because I believe there is only one unit called champion.
   • From Age of Empires:Villager to Villager (Age of Empires)
   • From Age of Empires II:Conquistador and Elite Conquistador to Conquistador (Age of Empires II)
   • From War Elephant to War Elephant (Age of Empires), War Elephant (Age of Empires II), War Elephant (Age of Empires III), and War Elephant (Age of Mythology)
2. Redo and merge all Infoboxes. one for Units, one for buildings, one for games, etc.
3. Create useful navboxes, that compliment the Infoboxes links.
4. Create guidelines with formats and structures and subpages for each type of article (Manual of Style and Policy)
   • Manuals of Style for Units, Buildings, Civilizations and Factions.
   • A Policy referring to the processes and rules observed involving the creation, editing, and management of articles on Age of Empires Wiki as well as treatment among users.
5. A major redesign on Main Page and if necessary on the wiki styles.
6. Upload more avatar images for infoboxes and if necessary ingame ones. Each page should have at least one image.
7. Update the News section make use of the community portal and community corner with its Messages

Work Structure:

The project runs for about thirteen weeks or what is the same three months, starting on June 19th (this Sunday) and ending on September 18th of this year:

Week 1: "Wiki Innovators": Planning

• Finish the Planning phase, with all users interested.
• Manuals of Style and Policies complete
• Create consolidated infoboxes: {{Infobox unit}}, {{Infobox building}}, {{Infobox civilization}}, {{InfoboxGames}}, drawing elements from current infoboxes.
• Rename Age of Empires and Age of Empires: The Rise of Rome articles.
• Create Navboxes for Age I Civilizations, Units and Buildings.
• Upload News from the Age World (Current Events, Announcements, etc.), make use of community corner to keep users updated along with Messages

Week 2-3: "Wiki Gatherers" and "Wiki Emperors": Age I & The Rise of Rome

• Applying MoS to every Age of Empires (the first one) & The Rise of Rome article.
• Upload images for every page included above.
• Make a minor update on the Main Page.
• Rename Age of Empires II and Age of Empires II: The Conquerors articles.
• Create Navboxes for Age II Civilizations, Units and Buildings.

Week 4-5: "Wiki Kings" and "Wiki Conquerors": Age of Kings & The Conquerors

• Applying MoS to every Age of Empires II& The Conquerors article.
• Upload images for every page included above.
• Create a Community Portal
• Rename Age of Mythology and Age of Mythology: The Titans articles.
• Create Navboxes for Mythologies Civilizations, Units and Buildings.

Week 6-8: "Wiki Heroes", "Wiki Mythologies" and "Wiki Titans": Age of Mythology & The Titans

• Applying MoS to every Age of Empires II& The Conquerors article.
• Upload images for every page included above.
• Create a Community Portal
• Rename Age of Empires III, Age of Empires III: The WarChiefs and Age of Empires III: The Asian Dynasties articles.
• Redesign the Navboxes for Age III Civilizations, Units and Buildings.

Week 9-12: "Wiki Settlers", "Wiki Explorers", "Wiki Warchiefs" and "Wiki Monks": Age of Empires III, The WarChiefs & The Asian Dynasties

• Applying MoS to every Age of Empires III, The WarChiefs and The Asian Dynasties article.
• Upload images for every page included above.
• Categorize Templates, Images, and articles properly

Week 13: "Wiki Revolutionaries"

• Redisign Site (I'll ask User:JoePlay), Main Page, and create portals for each game.
• Review the option of Merging both wikis.

Final words

As you may see its very simple, but has a lot of work to do. For some things we may need bots (Aj, I'm looking at you) but it is mainly human work. I hope you are interested. From this point up to tomorrow I'll be detailing and discussing the project.

Thanks, - KazMx ( Message me! | My Edits! ) - ( ) 18:44, June 17, 2011 (UTC)