Introducing The Great Machine, the B5 Wiki!

[Sanfam]

In the past, I promised a Wiki going by the name of The Great Machine (http://tgm.firstones.com/). Well, here it is! Yes, it's been a few months coming, but we've had a few difficulties, and perhaps I'm just a *tad* lazier than I should be, but that's not the point. The point is, it exist, and it works! All we need now is content.

Yes, content! It's up to you, the Babylon 5 Fanbase to make The Great Machine (http://tgm.firstones.com/) a friendly, accurate, and most importantly reliable resource usable by anyone wishing to seek information about our favorite show.

So enjoy The Great Machine! (http://tgm.firstones.com/)

p.s.: It turns out, the wording of the default pages produces a neat message... (http://www.firstones.com/images/tgm.png)

[Biggles]

I didn't see any shadows. :(

Anyway, here's how it works (http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki_User%27s_Guide#For_editors). It's all really quite simple. Anyone can add and edit information. Please act sensibly, don't add rubbish or spam, and please proof read your entries. Maybe even get someone else to proof read them too.

[croxis]

I just did two massive updates. I should also point out that each page has its own discussion for debates and the like, however it may be possible to edit that to point to the forums? I also posted a link to tgm on the babylon 5 wikipedia entry

[Sanfam]

Great start! Thanks, Croxis!

I'll see if I can dig up some information on some stuff. I know my roommate could probably conjur up lots of thoughts on EA history. I'd really like to get a real Babylon 5 Universe encylopedia going :D

[C_Mon]

Coolness!! :cool:

[RubberEagle]

Great :)

Though i think i just found an error in the "unspoiled summary" page: it says there "Twenty-four hours before its completion Babylon 4 disappeared without trace. ", but it was 24 hours after going operational, if i remember correctly.

[Eclecticonaut]

- So, tell me about this Great Machine.

- Nonono, not Great Machine! Mmm, it is Not-So-Great Machine. We have many guns, but we no use them - it make good snow cone though. :p

And yes, good work indeed.

[croxis]

Sheesh, RC has gone more nuts than I did!

I think we shoudl have a contest for a TGM logo

[the_exile]

Lotsa links go to Wikipedia... is that by default, or because we don't have pages for those links [yet]?

[MikhailM]

I fixed whatever spelling errors I could find, and one link (Clark on the "Human" page). Hope you guys don't mind.

-- MikhailM, resident spell-checker. :)

[samuelk]

I posted an update on the Striebs, but noticed that it's misspelled on the main page. For some reason, though, I could not edit that part of the page to correct the spelling.

[MikhailM]

I'm fairly sure Streib is the correct spelling... but not sure enough to edit it in the Wiki.

[croxis]

Much of the initial content i posted came from the wikipedia,, so that could be why there are no links.

[Random Chaos]

Originally posted by the_exile
Lotsa links go to Wikipedia... is that by default, or because we don't have pages for those links [yet]?

Thats becuase the content came from Wikipedia originally for those pages...and we haven't modified them much. I fixed them so they weren't dead though :)

[the_exile]

Originally posted by MikhailM
I fixed whatever spelling errors I could find, and one link (Clark on the "Human" page). Hope you guys don't mind.

-- MikhailM, resident spell-checker. :) Let's start a Grammar Nazi union and demand better spelling. And dental!

[croxis]

Lets not stop there, lets do health insurance while we are at it too!

[croxis]

Bloody A I'm already getting lost in this thing!

[Phi]

Found the Secret Message yet? :shadow2:

-Φ has 666 posts

[the_exile]

Currently working on redirects for common variants, ie. Humans -> Human, Shadows -> Shadow

[croxis]

I'm working on crosslinking

[Samsomael]

Great work!

Wouldn't mind helping out with expanding. I'm new to the wikipedia area though, so is there any way to warn of spoilers to information in things like the histories of species? Don't want to give away things for people who have just started to enjoy B5 and haven't gone very far through the story line.

[Biggles]

If they haven't seen the show, they probably shouldn't be reading the wiki. :)

[Sanfam]

Well, they may be irregulars, or incomplete viewers. note that we also have a {{spoiler}} notice now. that'll also be useful.

[Rhett]

Very very cool... Hope to help out some more once I get some sleep and some free time. Just filled in a couple small things tonight before I head off to bed. Awesome project though, I really like it!!

[croxis]

aye, I also suggest for symnatics that we place NS_ or US_ (non spoiled or unspoiled) in front of duplicated entries for non spoiled viewers

[Sanfam]

NS seems like a good idea. Accepted!

[Random Chaos]

Note that I am assuming that everything linked from the main section is spoilers. Only those things linked from the "spoiler free overview!" at http://tgm.firstones.com/wiki/Unspoiled_Overview am I making sure is free of spoilers. Right now the only part that is a crossover between the two sides is the actor/actress list. I hope however that that won't have any spoilers. As long as we talk about the actor/actress and not the characters it would be best, though of course we will have links to the characters :( - no way to avoid that from the actors.

However, if the people want to keep delving into characters...they are going to hit spoilers no matter what we do.

[Sanfam]

Well, in pages that have spoilers, just seperate the information. Keep non-spoiler information above the {{spoiler}} tag, and put the rest below it. This way, we can get away with keeping a limited number of pages in the db.

[Random Chaos]

The biggest problem with the spoiler warning is the fact that the show is not temporally located. Anytime you talk about Babylon 4 or the Minbari or the Last Shadow War you are dealing with a temporal break.

When you hit a temporal break you wind up with Spoiler information in years preceeding 2258. In general all spoilers are after 2258, but when providing a date ordered history of a species it is impossible to accurately give spoiler warnings since backhistory is often part of the show too. For instance, Delenn's involvement with the war against Earth.

[the_exile]

I think that having entirely separate pages for NS and US entries would be more trouble than it is worth. Provide a brief overview, and then have a message stating that the rest of the entry contains spoilers.

[Sanfam]

Originally posted by Random Chaos
The biggest problem with the spoiler warning is the fact that the show is not temporally located. Anytime you talk about Babylon 4 or the Minbari or the Last Shadow War you are dealing with a temporal break.

When you hit a temporal break you wind up with Spoiler information in years preceeding 2258. In general all spoilers are after 2258, but when providing a date ordered history of a species it is impossible to accurately give spoiler warnings since backhistory is often part of the show too. For instance, Delenn's involvement with the war against Earth.

Something we should consider for a timeline then, is figuring out how to dynamically enable/disable the viewing of selections. We could maybe have jambo come in and make us a "spoiler hide" tag that we could apply, and through CSS, show or hide the text selectively.

[Rhett]

I must congratulate Random Chaos on the amount of sheer content he is adding. Im working on Season Three right now (at a snails pace) but RC is really cranking out pages. So congrats to him and everyone else who is putting in the time to make this thing great!!

[Random Chaos]

Centauri is mostly done now. Thats the last of the 4 major races.

Now we need to finish making the sub pages for all those races and make the minor races (including the Vorlons and Shadows who aren't really minor, though our history of them is much more limited and so much shorter to make).

I'll be back to editing on Sunday. I expect to see other people to have done stuff :) :)

[Norlion]

Oh boy! Now I can put in planets and systems galore! I will make sure ot get everything sourced.

Editing this thing is easy.

[the_exile]

Please note that species are listed by the singular form of their name--for example, the Narns are listed under "Narn," and the Humans are listed under "Human." Most variants have redirects in place, but I've noticed a few mislinked keywords.

Also, capitalization DOES matter. I would suggest always capitalizing the first letter of each word in an article's title.

[bobo]

Is it appropriate to put the FirstOnes Amazon links in the Novels section, or would this fit better under Merchandise? Same for the DVDs?

[croxis]

put the link on the merchendice page, but have the novil and dvd page reference the merch page

[JohnD]

Originally posted by Sanfam
I'll see if I can dig up some information on some stuff. I know my roommate could probably conjur up lots of thoughts on EA history. I'd really like to get a real Babylon 5 Universe encylopedia going :D

I think Agents of Gaming and now, Mongoose, had/has more than a few thoughts about EA history. In fact, EA history has been documented in some AoG products, or planned products if I remember correctly.

[Random Chaos]

If you know the episode you are referencing just link to the episode description (put an Episodes: section at the end of the article). We assume that most stuff in the episode descriptions come from the episode in question.

Actually I need to go back and do a lot of this :)

As for other references, if it is Lurkers guide or official JMS/B5 material lets assume you don't need detailed references. If it is other outside stuff, reference.

Most of my ship info was pulled from www.tp2d.de, but when I set up the category system my reference was lost (it was on the index page for it all). I need to go back and reference that site on most ship pages.

--RC

[Random Chaos]

<a href=http://tgm.firstones.com/wiki/Babylon_Project_Mental_Health_Facility>We've got a new page!</a>

[Rhett]

Originally posted by Random Chaos
<a href=http://tgm.firstones.com/wiki/Babylon_Project_Mental_Health_Facility>We've got a new page!</a>
:D

[Random Chaos]

Thought I would give everyone an update:

Wiki now is skinned! This means you don't see the boring "Book" graphic and "Flower" logo and white on gray colors anymore. It now has Firstones Blue, blue nebula and star background, and The Great Machine graphic!

Note that the graphics are temporary until someone decides to make really good ones! :D

YIPPIE!

:D

Also I've finished off Zathras and time stabilization and started on the B5 station tour and created a Zocalo bazzar page. :)

--RC

[Random Chaos]

Started working my way through the episodes. Season 1 almost complete now. Also added Shadow page, ISN News page (under "Visit the Zocalo"), killed a number of Stubs of actors/actresses (duped content from Wiki, then edited), and added a batch of related content to Season 1.

Whee - something like 500 edits since yesterday morning by me :D


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Rhett: I changed the format of the Episode pages to include a header containing episode info. Check it out before you edit more pages and try and incorperate it. Make sure you create the writer categories before you link to a writer not previously seen...oh wait...you're doing S3 - those are all by JMS.


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Everyone:
*Someone needs to do the JMS page. Someone volunteer becuase I don't want to do that one.
*We need a logo. I think Croxis is working on one, but I'm not positive. We welcome competition!
*We need lots of graphics for the site (renders of ships, photos of species, etc.) - if you have anything we can use please upload it :)


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Advertising:
We need people to go about and advertise this thing. We need to get more people editing and viewing. If you can help, please! We are desperate!

Thanks,
RC

[croxis]

Yes I'm working on one :)

[MikhailM]

Nice work RC! :)

I've checked all the pages you did, so feel free to write more. :D

[Random Chaos]

I sort of work on this during times of intense procrastination on other stuff. If I let myself go I would be constantly writing this stuff. The problem is I actually have other stuff to get done :D