ConwayLife.com

Current LifeWiki Content

( Caterloopillars, etc. )

is so far "over my head"

I feel excluded by The Community.

and I consider myself a Life Enthusiast.

Thank You.

Current LifeWiki content is imperfect and could be improved in several different ways.

In many cases, intuitively clear, human-readable explanations are completely missing.

There is insufficient attention to the terminology used in the wiki to refer to general Life/CA-related concepts. Local jargon is mindlessly copied from the forums into LifeWiki, seemingly without thinking twice whether that makes sense when you are no longer talking to another experienced CA enthusiast in the same area, but instead are talking to the wider Life/CA audience mostly consisting of interested-but-not-invested readers (or enthusiasts from other areas). That often results in unintuitive/counterintuitive/misleading wording.

There are internal contradictions within a single page. There are contradictions and inconsistencies of different kinds across the wiki, making it unnecessarily hard for readers to understand topics.

Infoboxes are overused and filled with information that should instead be given in the main part of the page / information that doesn't fit in the infobox.

Embedded viewers are formatted in inconsistent and/or suboptimal ways. In multiple cases, "animation by default" is overused so that the page causes significant slowdown for many readers.

Forum refs to sources of the discoveries / places to read more about the topic are often missing.

LifeWiki is edited by a very small subset of the CA community (i.e. a few currently active editors). Unfortunately the currently active editors often miss needs of the target audience.

LifeWiki is probably the best way to promote CGoL to a wider audience.

When I started reading the wiki, I wanted to read it more and more; it became a regular habit.

I just feel the current stuff is a bit too deep, that is all.

LifeWiki generally has excellent content.

Thank You.

There was a mention of Caterloopillars.
The current revision of the page Caterloopillar can be seen here: https://conwaylife.com/w/index.php?oldid=141939
What would be your suggestions regarding that page? How it could be improved? Which problems with content / exposition / etc. you see? (As an example, or any other page or pages.)

otismo wrote: July 18th, 2024, 4:31 pm Current LifeWiki Content

( Caterloopillars, etc. )

is so far "over my head"

I feel excluded by The Community.

and I consider myself a Life Enthusiast.

Thank You.

otismo wrote: July 19th, 2024, 5:36 pm [...] I just feel the current stuff is a bit too deep, that is all. [...]

if people want to read about caterloopillars, they can search them out

newcomers will be even more bewildered than I was by the current content, which is directed at the advanced enthusiast

LifeWiki should ALWAYS have the newcomer first and foremost

and you never get a second chance to make a first impression

in the main, LifeWiki does an excellent job

but please put yourself in the other guys shoes

and you cant go wrong

Thank You !

So you're telling us to stop discovering stuff?

What I agree and disagree with.

The aim of LifeWiki is to document existing knowledge about Conway's Life and other cellular automata, primarily in the form of encyclopedic-style articles about specific notable topics. Just because a newcomer cannot immediately grasp some "advanced topic", doesn't mean it is not notable for LifeWiki. Many notable Life/CA-related topics that definitely deserve dedicated articles are sufficiently advanced to make it impossible for a complete beginner to grasp them on a first read.

However, it is definitely a good idea to keep in mind that the wiki is written for readers -- not for writers.
It is certainly a good idea to attempt to "put yourself in the other guys shoes", i.e. think how a beginner would see the article, or how an interested-but-not-invested curious reader would see the article, or how an enthusiast coming from a different area within Life/CA would see the article on a topic they are not yet familiar with.

otismo wrote: July 20th, 2024, 3:56 pm newcomers will be even more bewildered than I was by the current content, which is directed at the advanced enthusiast

I don't believe newcomers from the target audience of LifeWiki can be bewildered by the advanced topics. People who are genuinely curious about Life/CA expect some "advanced stuff".
However, readers (including beginners and enthusiasts) certainly can be bewildered by unnecessary jargon, by inconsistencies, by tangential distractions, and by any other failures to write an encyclopedic-style article about a single notable topic.

Wording can be intuitive or confusing; it can be clear or vague; it can be consistent or self-contradictory; it can be helpful or misleading. Vague, counterintuitive, self-contradictory jargon makes bad impression.
Parts that do not contribute to understanding the topic of an article become irrelevant distractions, interfering with understanding, and making a bad impression once the reader finally sees the lack of relevance.
Minor inconsistencies and quirks accumulate into bad experience for readers, even if a single minor inconsistency would be almost invisible.

Specifically to the Caterloopillar snippet shown on the main page, I think bringing over some more of the wording from the article itself would be a help, specifically "Caterloopillar is the name given to a family of spaceships which provides a general solution for self-supporting orthogonal travel at a wide range of speeds. The engineless design is made up of two major parts, the front and the back."

As is the snippet says "Caterloopillar is the name given to a family of spaceships containing two major parts - the front and the back." which makes me wonder why on earth I should care and seems too vague and generic (don't all ships have a front and back?).

There's probably some challenge in documenting something generic that is also so large as to be hard to visualize. https://conwaylife.com/wiki/Reverse_caber-tosser has some similar issues but I've at least seen enough video to help explain it.

https://conwaylife.com/wiki/File:Caterloopillar.png could probably use better captioning or something - what do the various colors mean? What's with the red blobs where apparently a solid filled one equals four outlined ones? How does that back end terminate?

shud have titled Current LifeWiki Home Page Content

sorry about confusion

I feel that

This week's featured article

AND

did you know...

should be at the level of ten year olds who know nothing about CGoL

for folks who bring only their interest - our number one goal ought to be to build that interest

otismo wrote: July 22nd, 2024, 11:00 am shud have titled Current LifeWiki Home Page Content

sorry about confusion

I feel that

This week's featured article

AND

did you know...
[...]

It makes sense to have more strict filtering of DYK items and other content that appears on the home page. ( viewtopic.php?p=171887#p171887 )
There is not enough space in a "Did you know?" snippet, to explain some topic in details. The question becomes "is it possible to give a brief, clear, accessible summary that would be helpful and that would not be misleading?"

otismo wrote: July 22nd, 2024, 11:00 am [...]
should be at the level of ten year olds who know nothing about CGoL

for folks who bring only their interest - our number one goal ought to be to build that interest

The phrase 'ten year olds who know nothing about CGoL' does not really capture any specific "level". Different people explore the world in different ways. Past experience, background, other hobbies can and will vary.

Ultimately, LifeWiki is aimed at people who are already curious/interested, even though they may or may not know much about topics in the wiki's scope.

It is impossible to productively intervene in someone else's experience and "build their interest". Attempts to do that are likely to lead to opposite effects. You will lose people who were already curious, and you will attract people who don't really care.

All that can be done, is to let readers become more interested, by helping them to understand existing knowledge (by providing clear accessible exposition of the existing knowledge / state of the art), and by maintaining sufficiently welcoming environment for those who become sufficiently curious to find this website and to try contributing here.