curation of Projects using OGRE wiki

[bvanevery]

I just updated all the entries on Projects using Ogre to include the open source licenses used, if any. This is helpful to people like myself who are looking to see how Ogre games are put together in practice. I made a forum post about my actual experiences building those projects.

In the course of this, I noticed that many of those links are dead. What are the community standards for curating such links? If a correct, current link can't be found for a project, I personally would delete them outright. I don't think that dead links are helpful to anybody, and they showcase Ogre "failures" (?) rather than success stories.

Some people might say those links have historical value. For instance, I made an effort to track down a modern page for Short Hike, but I couldn't fine one. How do people feel about a "historical projects" section?

[jacmoe]

I'd say: delete them.

If someone wants history, there's wiki history.

Great, and much needed! work.

[bvanevery]

I'll wait a few days for a straw poll of potentially interested persons. If nobody expresses concern, I'll do the deletions.

[TheSHEEEP]

I'd say either delete or do an extra page for inactive/dead ones.

[bvanevery]

I'd say either delete or do an extra page for inactive/dead ones.

If presented a choice, and without a strong motivation expressed, I'd choose delete. Can you name some specific benefits for keeping an inactive / dead page?

Also, there are degrees of death. For instance, Short Hike was commercially released. It's a pretty good game, I judged it in the IGF one year. I don't know what happened. I'm more motivated to track that one down, but it hasn't yielded.

In comparison, some projects have a forum that says they worked on something for awhile, but then met with despair and abandoned their effort. No code drops, no repository in some cases. Lacking those, it becomes somewhat difficult to establish that the project used Ogre at all. I'm not sure anyone should be going through heroics to prove that Ogre was used, as people start and abandon projects all the time.

[TheSHEEEP]

Benefits?
Well, the list would be longer

Other than that, historical reasons. Pointing to the history of the wiki page would be a good alternative.

[bvanevery]

Benefits?
Well, the list would be longer

From a marketing standpoint, I think showcasing good projects is more important than showcasing as many projects as possible. You gave a winky so I don't know if you mean this seriously or not, but in all seriousness, the list will be plenty long enough without the dead weight projects.

Other than that, historical reasons. Pointing to the history of the wiki page would be a good alternative.

Meaning a prominent notice that, "If you are interested in other projects that might have used Ogre, you may be able to find them in the wiki history," or something wordsmithed roughly to that effect?

We should probably come up with a statement of why a link will be kept or deleted.

[jacmoe]

I think the most important reason for having a list in the first place is that the list is valid.

If you are in doubt: delete the entry.

I am pretty sure that, if it was deleted in error, it will be put back.
It it's not, then it was indeed dead, and no harm done.

It is a wiki, not a stone tablet.

[bvanevery]

I put the following on the wiki.

If you find a dead link, or one that doesn't use Ogre, please either correct it or delete it. If you're looking for something that got deleted, you can find it in the wiki history for this page.

I couldn't figure out how to make an internal link to the history associated with a page, so I just made it an external link with a full URL. I will give a few days for the verbiage to sink in, to see if anyone has issues. Then I'll start deleting.

[bvanevery]

I've decided the page should have an Inactive section at the bottom. This would be for open source projects that still have code repositories or tarballs available somewhere, but development has ceased. I can't in good conscience remove all trace of their passage, as someone might make use of the code someday. But nobody should have to fumble around for 5 minutes per project to determine that, well, it's probably just old useless junk.

[bvanevery]

I do believe I've done it. Scrubbed that Ogre squeaky clean behind the ears. Roughly 50% active projects, 50% inactive now. Plenty of dead links gone.

[bvanevery]

The more pruning I've done of other parts of the Ogre wiki, the more inactive projects I've accumulated. The list was getting rather long, so I did 2 things. (1) I created an Inactive Projects page. It is linked at the top of the Projects using Ogre page, and nowhere else. It can be found, but it's deliberately set up to be more difficult to locate. If people get lazy and just delete stuff rather than moving it to Inactive Projects, because it's an extra editing step to cut and paste across 2 pages, well I don't have a problem with that. (2) I've stopped caring about archiving really old projects, like from 2006 and earlier. Especially, projects that just wrote up a wiki page about someone's forum post with a tarball. Projects without modern source control have to die. Or, they have to be resurrected by someone other than this particular archivist.

• Well if the body is still available I suppose it's raising the dead.
• What was that Ultima III spell for resurrection?

[jacmoe]

You are great, Bvanevery
Much needed work!