ImpVis wiki status quo summer 2021

On this page, everything with regards to the current (July 2021) state of the wiki will be stated; this includes things that have been accomplished, ideas that have been discussed but not yet implemented, and any other miscellaneous information regarding the wiki.

Implementation

The ImpVis wiki is implemented through MediaWiki, which is both free and open-source. This decision was made after considering using the already existing organisation structure on the ImpVis website, as well as other free and paid Wiki services. Some of the later discussions regarding the choice of MediaWiki being made can be found at https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Ly28aOzML8BRNvKjWHGtVKnsYemzcqmx2wLbCt7bdJc.

Structure

Currently the Wiki is divided into two main "departments" through the main page - those under "Wiki Divisions" on the main page, and those that are not. Everything on the wiki should be able to be found through following relevant links from the main page. The Wiki Divisions sub-title is the intended location for where everything will be housed within the Wiki eventually. Currently, Wiki Divisions is split into the three titles "Blackboard", "Visualisations", and "Knowledge".

The Blackboard section is intended to house all of the information that people taking the module need to see, and is intended to act as a homebase link for them to be able to refer to whenever looking for information with regards to the course. The Visualisation section is intended to be tied to visualisations that are visible on the website (whether this means only visualisations that are complete, or both that as well as designs submitted from the module is up for decision). As of the time of writing, no visualisations have been posted or tagged to this section yet. "Knowledge" is intended to hold all knowledge that people have found useful in the creation process of a visualisation. This can be at any stage from design, right through to project completion. For example, "How to contact an academic professional", "Things to consider when using discrete sliders", or "How this awkward to use function works" would all be found under the knowledge division of the wiki.

The "Impvis website" wiki page has been linked through the Blackboard division of the wiki (links to ImpVis Website). Relevant links that exist for the page already posted on, but content not yet filled out (needs writing).

Tutorial

The 2020 tutorial document has had all of its content worked into the wiki, with some minor modifications and additions. These pages can be found spread between the Blackboard and Knowledge divisions of the wiki. It must be noted that a lot of content has been copy and pasted in from the tutorial - a lot of improvements in writing to fit the context of being in the wiki need now to be made. In the tutorial there were some individual pages that had content missing/that needed expanding on anyway. The only page of real concern that we might not be able to write to though is the modal content written in red on this page: https://wiki.impvis.co.uk/index.php?title=Components_and_Vue_additional_comments. Outside of this, all content I've seen that's missing shouldn't require particular expertise to fill out (but they still do need filling out!). There is no "new" tutorial document as such; the pages are now just placed in the relevant places on the wiki (and shouldn't be difficult to find).

Permissions

Robert Jones currently has the highest permission privileges out of students remaining into Autumn 2021. Cianne Park has edit permissions, as do some students who were part of the "tech team" in summer 2021. Not all of these students have admin privileges however.

There are 3 main user groups:

• Autoconfirmed users
• Writers
• Administrators

Autoconfirmed users have permissions to read all pages, but edit none. (All new users are members of this group)

Writers have permissions to read all pages and edit all unprotected pages. (New pages are unprotected by default)

Administrators have permissions to read and edit all pages.

It is advised to make structural pages protected so that writers can not edit them.

It is expected that students on the iExplore module will be given writer permissions.

Permissions Update (September 17)

Due to an influx of strange accounts being registered with the ImpVis wiki, we have decided to make the wiki read only (excluding the main page) unless users are specifically given writer access.

It also may be useful to have certain sections of the wiki only visible to certain users, however this will probably require using the access control mediawiki extension, which has poor documentation.

Unfinished

Discussions regarding setting up the permission structure (hierarchy of bureaucrats) to easily allow staff/students taking part in the module have been had, but not cleared up (no decisions were made).

No visualisations have yet been tagged to the Visualisations division of the wiki. I suggest the first one that this could be done/trialed with would be Shahbanno's demo visualisation which shows off the components.

Missing content: Welcome to ImpVis (in the context of the module, not the summer team or code and crisps).

General tidyup of most wiki pages is needed at this point;

Images on https://wiki.impvis.co.uk/index.php?title=Getting_connected_on_Github not sorted yet; need a conversation about the copyright for uploading screenshots of npm (might not be an issue at all). The images of concern are from the page https://impvis.co.uk/launch/impvis-tutorial-unpublished/page_10.html.

Need to set up categories so that https://wiki.impvis.co.uk/index.php?title=Special%3AAllPages works properly.