ka3jjz
Wiki Admin Emeritus
As part of the ongoing reorg going on in the collaboration (geographic) section of our wiki, QDP2012 and I recently spent a good deal of time going through articles that have multiple topics.
While this is in and of itself not an issue (rather, it's to be encouraged), just putting that article into a category for that state effectively 'hides' the topics in that article. There's no easy way to spot what topics that article covers, short of finding it in the appropriate county and digging through it.
MediaWiki (the software that drives our wiki here) provides a way of flagging articles with specific types of information called Categories. Each category is then automatically indexed and maintained by MediaWiki, making it fairly easy to find a particular topic. For example, if you wanted to find out whether some RID/UIDs had been captured for your particular county, all you'd need to do is to go to that state's RID/UID category (which we'll get to in a moment) and see if there's a listing there.
It's preferable to have each category on a separate line - this makes it very easy to add or subtract a category as is needed. Here's a simple example of one such article (you can edit this to see the coding - go down to the very bottom)
Businesses, Railroads, Media, Attractions and Recreation - Jefferson County (MO)
The next logical question is 'what categories do we have'?
Good question. We have over 100 such categories in the wiki - the trouble is, not all of them are set up for use in the collaboration area and that makes it difficult to find one particular category. So I've created a series of tables that outline every category in our collaboration area (including RID/UIDs). These tables begin here
Collaboration Categories - The RadioReference Wiki
Each table begins with a general topic or 'theme'. Each theme is then exploded into the categories that cover it. There's a good deal of overlap in some spots - this was expected that some may actually cover multiple themes (Recreation or Attractions is a perfect example).
So to go back to finding whether a RID/UID list exists for your county, it's very easy. Go to the wiki pulldown, select COLLABORATION, then in the US Section click on COLLABORATION CATEGORIES. On the next page, select SCANNER INFO from the table. Then select RID/UIDs from the table on the following page. This brings you to a list of categories (by state/province) that contain lists of articles that have RID/UID information. Click on your desired category, then on the article you wish to see. It's a bit of a drill down not unlike, in some respects, how the database is set up. All themes work in a similar manner.
Many have a sub-category that points to 'Frequencies'. This is an easy way to target those articles that have frequency information on them. It should be pointed out that this information, unlike the database, may not be validated. That's up to you to do. This is in no way meant to replace the database - but rather to supplement it, and to give you additional targets to check. This is a nice way of answering the question 'is there anything else out there for my county besides what's in the database'? The answer may be yes.
So if you are writing a new article with multiple topics, please be sure to put it into multiple categories, if they apply. Doing so helps to maintain the wiki 'database' (and yes, MediaWiki runs atop several different database packages, such as PHP and SQL/Server) and makes it easy to spot a particular topic. Remember, you can change whether an article belongs to a category simply by changing the category list at the bottom of the page. MediaWiki will take care of the rest without intervention from anyone. The order in which they appear isn't significant. Please do not send such requests to the database team - they will be summarily rejected.
There's still a good deal of cleanup that needs to happen (and that will likely start next year), but we've made a lot of progress in creating a 'database' like structure that should hopefully make finding things in the wiki a bit easier.
Mike
While this is in and of itself not an issue (rather, it's to be encouraged), just putting that article into a category for that state effectively 'hides' the topics in that article. There's no easy way to spot what topics that article covers, short of finding it in the appropriate county and digging through it.
MediaWiki (the software that drives our wiki here) provides a way of flagging articles with specific types of information called Categories. Each category is then automatically indexed and maintained by MediaWiki, making it fairly easy to find a particular topic. For example, if you wanted to find out whether some RID/UIDs had been captured for your particular county, all you'd need to do is to go to that state's RID/UID category (which we'll get to in a moment) and see if there's a listing there.
It's preferable to have each category on a separate line - this makes it very easy to add or subtract a category as is needed. Here's a simple example of one such article (you can edit this to see the coding - go down to the very bottom)
Businesses, Railroads, Media, Attractions and Recreation - Jefferson County (MO)
The next logical question is 'what categories do we have'?
Good question. We have over 100 such categories in the wiki - the trouble is, not all of them are set up for use in the collaboration area and that makes it difficult to find one particular category. So I've created a series of tables that outline every category in our collaboration area (including RID/UIDs). These tables begin here
Collaboration Categories - The RadioReference Wiki
Each table begins with a general topic or 'theme'. Each theme is then exploded into the categories that cover it. There's a good deal of overlap in some spots - this was expected that some may actually cover multiple themes (Recreation or Attractions is a perfect example).
So to go back to finding whether a RID/UID list exists for your county, it's very easy. Go to the wiki pulldown, select COLLABORATION, then in the US Section click on COLLABORATION CATEGORIES. On the next page, select SCANNER INFO from the table. Then select RID/UIDs from the table on the following page. This brings you to a list of categories (by state/province) that contain lists of articles that have RID/UID information. Click on your desired category, then on the article you wish to see. It's a bit of a drill down not unlike, in some respects, how the database is set up. All themes work in a similar manner.
Many have a sub-category that points to 'Frequencies'. This is an easy way to target those articles that have frequency information on them. It should be pointed out that this information, unlike the database, may not be validated. That's up to you to do. This is in no way meant to replace the database - but rather to supplement it, and to give you additional targets to check. This is a nice way of answering the question 'is there anything else out there for my county besides what's in the database'? The answer may be yes.
So if you are writing a new article with multiple topics, please be sure to put it into multiple categories, if they apply. Doing so helps to maintain the wiki 'database' (and yes, MediaWiki runs atop several different database packages, such as PHP and SQL/Server) and makes it easy to spot a particular topic. Remember, you can change whether an article belongs to a category simply by changing the category list at the bottom of the page. MediaWiki will take care of the rest without intervention from anyone. The order in which they appear isn't significant. Please do not send such requests to the database team - they will be summarily rejected.
There's still a good deal of cleanup that needs to happen (and that will likely start next year), but we've made a lot of progress in creating a 'database' like structure that should hopefully make finding things in the wiki a bit easier.
Mike
