What would you like to see on Entropedia

Hey Entropians,

I am starting this thread to ask everyone what you would like to see on Entropedia.

I am starting another thread regarding bugs, so please just stick to features on this thread.

Thanks

1. Website stability
2. The ability for us to quickly and easily update and add items
3. Maps with the location of all TPs on all Planets
4. Continuous activity and maintenance from those administering the site.

More pics.. always more pics Id add loads if I knew how!

Edited to say - I used to have problems with its search, but it seems to be a million times better now

1: Entropedia is getting a complete rewrite as well as a new server setup which is a lot more performant

2,3 : Are addressed in the new version coming

4: I will do my best

New planets update and the feature to disregarg every other planet info when choosing one specific planet in the Main Page.

HardWrath said:

2. The ability for us to quickly and easily update and add items

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Some system in place that do not allow anybody to create account and edit info.
As we saw in past there was some people who did a lot of damage by deliberately changing info to mislead others.
IMO changes should always be a 'proposal' that could be verified and approved or dismissed by others.

The most annoying thing, i'd like to see fixed in there, is the use of session.
Go to weapon list, select some type of weapon, sort it by something, leave the page open... wait 30minutes (or what ever is the configured session time on the server), try to use the search function, or change the weapon typo or anything that is in the form -> session timeout. Need to go to the weapons page again, and select the type again, and sort again, etc... Happens pretty much on every page, mostly it's annoying when using weapon compare... don't use it for 30minutes, try to add a weapon -> NOPE, re-add all 10 weapons.
I don't even see why would you use sessions in there in the first place.

So, in short; remove the session bullshit from searches etc.

Edit: just came to me, the session is probably for the conficurable columns... well, that's okay, but you don't really need session for those.

Teiwaz Storm said:

Some system in place that do not allow anybody to create account and edit info.
As we saw in past there was some people who did a lot of damage by deliberately changing info to mislead others.
IMO changes should always be a 'proposal' that could be verified and approved or dismissed by others.

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Well some of us do have accounts there and have access to a lot of the desirable items that people want to see the stats on. An easy way to prevent abuse is to make sure that all accounts are associated with a specific avatar and when one of us makes a change to item stats, make sure that the name is publicly viewable.

HardWrath said:

Well some of us do have accounts there and have access to a lot of the desirable items that people want to see the stats on. An easy way to prevent abuse is to make sure that all accounts are associated with a specific avatar and when one of us makes a change to item stats, make sure that the name is publicly viewable.

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To do that there would need to be group of people that verify every new account there.
I think it's too big effort and changes submitted waiting for verification is much easier solution.

I'm really not comfortable with completely replacing the existing system with a different one developed by a single person and trying to be a be-all end-all solution. That makes us vulnerable to the same situation again, but with the potential of less accessible data the next time around. It also risks ads etc being added.

Regarding verification of data added through the wiki: in the existing system there were a limited number of people given essentially moderator access who could verify values. That in combination with a system that doesn't display values until they are approved by a moderator would probably be the most secure way, but requires a lot of work by and trust in moderators.

As I said in the entropedia thread, if we're going to start over with entropedia i think it should be set up as an efficient but bare-bones database type wiki and all elaborate data presentation and tools kept as separate web apps that refer users back to the core database entropedia for updating data. That way we can get competition where it truly is valuable (in the provision of tools and UI enhancements) while not duplication and diluting effort in data gathering and verifying.

Doer said:

I'm really not comfortable with completely replacing the existing system with a different one developed by a single person and trying to be a be-all end-all solution. That makes us vulnerable to the same situation again, but with the potential of less accessible data the next time around. It also risks ads etc being added.

Regarding verification of data added through the wiki: in the existing system there were a limited number of people given essentially moderator access who could verify values. That in combination with a system that doesn't display values until they are approved by a moderator would probably be the most secure way, but requires a lot of work by and trust in moderators.

As I said in the entropedia thread, if we're going to start over with entropedia i think it should be set up as an efficient but bare-bones database type wiki and all elaborate data presentation and tools kept as separate web apps that refer users back to the core database entropedia for updating data. That way we can get competition where it truly is valuable (in the provision of tools and UI enhancements) while not duplication and diluting effort in data gathering and verifying.

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While you make a point, i am committing to supporting this project full time, Entropedia will not be monetised, no ads.

The current Entropedia site will not be replaced until the community has seen what i am working on and a stable version is released on another domain.

Which in the meantime i will try to fix bugs on the current site.

I would like to see bug fixes, not rewrites, first.

Pardon me, but waiting for a rewrite while we have not been able to add some types of items for ages is just ridiculous.

remontoire said:

I would like to see bug fixes, not rewrites, first.

Pardon me, but waiting for a rewrite while we have not been able to add some types of items for ages is just ridiculous.

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Well i have fixed those bugs already.

1. Upgrade to the data table search algorith to allow for multiple arguments per statement.
2. More data table Operators like <, >, >=, <=, &&, ||
3. A vote based push/pull request system with administrator approval for new data entries to ensure accuracy.

Good luck in your endevour with Entropedia

Best regards
Zweshi

The single feature that I rely on the most is the Weapon Compare

Second to that, I use the wiki to get mission info

Siniko said:

Well i have fixed those bugs already.

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OK, I will test it today.

As for what I would like to see on Entropedia, I made a post once:

remontoire said:

It goes with the other thread asking for developers. So my list (no implied order in any way) would be:

• saving custom % with L armors in armor adviser
• being able to pick a default % for limited armors in armor adviser
• add code for "absorb decay" attachments and implants to weapon cost calc
• add the possibility of implants to be limited, and have markup in weapons calcs
• make mob damage be a separate object from mobs, so that a mob could have several damage sets - and make armor vs mob and armor adviser understand these.
• Add a new flag, "official" to armors, and add a new set "no official" to armor adviser
• Make the amount of bombs used by a finder be a parameter
• And make a real finder compare tool, one that supports amps
• Make a crafting calculator that lets you input ingredient mu and calculates cost and probabilities for a run of x clicks / resulting mu
• Make all of the "Add item" selections pop up a dialogue, instead of having you fill in a long scrolling line in a table
• Add instances as new subtype of locations to be able to include maps, descriptions, mobs, etc.

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The new version will be exactly the same, just completely rewritten, i'm focusing only what's already built.

It will just be completely re-written, fast, have it's own automatic tests.

I'm not just rewriting because i feel like it,

Entropedia need's a rewrite, it's outdated.

I do believe Entropedia should be a all in one solution, dispersing the features on multiple sites, would require multiple accounts for users.

I'm actually not alone working on this project, My brother is a front-end developer and i do all the back-end.

If the community request an API,i will provide it.

Siniko said:

If the community request an API,i will provide it.

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Yes please

The two things I really wish were better are the spawn locations and the loot drops, but I'm not sure what you can do about that.

Also, I agree that more pictures would be good.

For those unfamiliar with the history of Entropedia -

Minder created the site as 'PE-wiki' in 2005.
In 2006 Minder stopped playing, and the site nearly became defunct, until Witte managed to contact him and arrange to take over and continue the site for the benefit of the community, renaming it to Entropedia.

In 2013, Witte became too involved in RL work etc to have the time to continue to manage and regularly maintain/update the site. After several months of contact with Witte via email and with his agreement, I posted a thread here to start looking for a new site admin to take over the role.
That led to Siniko and Witte having a discussion in March this year (just 3 months ago) and since then, Witte has handed over the all site code etc to Siniko.

On viewing the code, Siniko became aware that much of it has remained unchanged since 2005, and consequently some is out of date due to more recent coding language developments.
It's making the site slower, more unstable, and unable to handle higher traffic volumes.
He is therefore re-writing the site to bring it up to date, make it more efficient to use, and to improve the notification and management of bugs etc.
While I'm no programmer, I think I'd be safe to suggest this will probably take some time to do.

Teiwaz, I see where you're coming from, but Entropedia needs every possible person updating the databases. I'd be reluctant to see any barriers put in the way of new users.
While there is - as Doer notes - a 'Trusted User' group for the site, who can 'lock' some data (like the weapon 'decay' field) once verified, their role is not to actively monitor, verify and 'approve' data editing before publication. That would be extremely burdensome. Instead, it's up to the community of users, as a whole, to do that.
All changes to the site are visible on the 'Latest Update' page (http://www.entropiawiki.com/History.aspx), and anyone can go there and highlight changes that seem false or need verification. Anyone can also undo changes that are wrong. I try to fix those that are clearly errors, once someone reports them on the forum here.
If this is a particular interest of your own though, there is nothing to prevent you monitoring and reviewing the latest updates every day.

Rumsponge, mapping spawn locations - indeed a whole range of issues around the mapping of stuff - has been an ongoing issue since a change to the underlying Google Maps 'product' last year. At the time, Witte said it was going to take 'quite some work' to integrate the new product properly with the site, and that he had no time to do it. I'm hoping it's an area that Siniko can prioritise while updating the code, as it was one of my ongoing 'projects' with Entropedia [To be specific, while spawn 'points' can be added, polygons showing the extent of the spawn cannot be added or edited atm]
BTW, anyone can upload pictures to the Gallery, it's not all that hard. You can also add in vids etc, as has been done on some of the Creature pages, iirc.

integration with other sites and wikis would be nice... For example, the entropiaplanets wiki has a bunch of old magazine type articles, etc. Where's all of that in entropedia? Where's the links to, star system for, and reviews for the stuff over at https://www.planetcalypsoforum.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?232-Tools-amp-Utilities A one stop shop should include all third party apps that are 'trusted' enough by the community that they are known to not be outright scamming/identity theft attempts. Some sort of review site for that type of tool is something that I don't think anyone's attempted yet.

Personally what I'd like to see is something like the old skill scanner where you can do a screen print and the website automatically pulls info in on that so you don't have to type it all in. Would make adding new items a breeze... just open item info screen in game, hit screen print for all pages of that thing and blamo, new item is in the database, using ocr to read it.

I'd like to see the new HA formula adapted to Entropedia. A couple of other things as well like a tool compare tool which allows me To compare faps with different enhancer settings directly to each other instead of noting down the values of the configuration and then reload the fap page select the new config and then compare it manually with the noted values.

That would be a start...

And.... thanks for your efforts. It is always good to see someone involves for the community. And i can very well imagine that entropedia needs indeed a rewrite. Will it remain on a windows based codebase ?

planet toulan added.

Spawn said:

planet toulan added.

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Perhaps you missed the post but the various broken tables have already been fixed.

I added Planet Toulan yesterday (see Planet table: http://www.entropiawiki.com/Chart.aspx?chart=Planet)

I also copied a list of all discoveries from EntropiaLife) since the tables were reported as bugged, so that I can add them to the various tables. I started doing that last night - til I got distracted by someone in Rookie chat asking for help

While I'll keep plugging away at adding the remaining 289 items on the list, it would be helpful if everyone else continued to add items as well.

Hosted with a host that protects against virus's / malware apprearing ?

Siniko said:

1: Entropedia is getting a complete rewrite

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That's excellent news. However, if that's done by only you, and not "open" (as in Open source, or better yet, Free Software), it's still a single point of failure. Perhaps the most obvious argument is "anyone can be run over by a bus". You're obviously in it for the long run (else you wouldn't even consider it), why I humbly suggest you think about it for an even longer time span. If in a decade you vanish, and there is neither source code nor DB dumps available... You get the idea.

Siniko said:

as well as a new server setup which is a lot more performant

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Also excellent news. But I really think MA should step up here, and pay for running it. I'm not talking about giving you a salary, but at least paying the hosting bill.

++luck;

Ah another point crossed my mind. The implementation of Melee amps in the weapon overview and Weapon compare section.

One feature that I find very useful and would love to see in the new entropedia, is Export to CSV.

The new entropedia will run on .NET too or it will be something else?
Will you be using a wiki engine? which one?

I would very much like to see the Armour Adviser updated to work properly with the current armour system, not the old one.

I use "Armour vs Mobs" a lot but can no longer trust it since MA changed the way amour and plates interact. I'm wondering if there are other calculations that need to be reviewed with the various tools on the site.