#Bringbacktheoldwiki
(Poll at the bottom in case you want to skip my ranting)
Why we should bring back the old wiki
The new wiki pratically has no useful upgrades except for dynamic banners on vehicle type pages and ratings of vehicles, both of which are not that important.(though to be fair the dynamic banners are pretty nice)
The old wiki had tonnes of useful content and functions, such as watchlisting, random page, and particularly usage in battles and historical info just to name a few. Stuff like these templates were also really nice to navigate.
The old wiki was much more easy to navigate simply because it had a search bar.
Editting on the old wiki was slightly flawed however at least we could edit it. The new wiki is completely unusable in terms of this aspects. It has been quite some days and I still have not found the edit button.
Aesthetically speaking the old wiki was much better. It looked professional and as a wikipedia editor myself I really liked how similar it was to wikipedia. Outside of vehicle pages, the new war thunder wiki looks more like social media. Just compare crew lock from the old wiki to the new wiki.
The old wiki, though inperfect, is really loved within the community.
Alternate solutions to switching back to the old wiki
Sadly, editting and the show in game functions have been removed. An alternate solution to completely ditching the new wiki and going back to the old one would be making the old wiki usable again, though I would still hope we completely go back to the old wiki.
Old one is still accessible for some time to allow users to transfer their articles and use the information to write new ones (among other things): https://old-wiki.warthunder.com/Main_Page
Please note also that the new Wiki is still Work In Progress, and the team is still busy tweaking things, transferring content from Old to New, adding functionalities, and at the same time reviewing and releasing new content that players currently submit in large quantities.
So no need to go “Woe woe, all is lost, old wiki was much better and new one lost so much!” just yet… = )
I don’t think i am overreactting.
The new wiki is sort of unnessecary, the old wiki had everything that was needed and was aesthetically better.
However if they add the search bar to the new wiki I might change my mind and start using the new wiki.
But still the old wiki is better even if the search bar is added to the new wiki.
As I said, the work on it (including Global Search) is just not finished yet, so I personally find any strong reaction not overreacting, but simply a bit premature.
I for my part like the new wiki, but also eagerly await further improvements (especially when it comes to completeness of stats cards), features, and completion of transfer of articles.
Not sure if im the only one pointing this out but not a big fan of the new “player made article” format
Looks completely unprofessional unlike the old article format
If i wanted to read from stuff that looks like social media posts i have the war thunder forums and youtube for that. The new wiki is not an encyclopedia, it is unorganized mess of info.
My concerns are borne of Rinhord’s experiences. They tried writing an informative, concise article and were rebuffed as it was not long and wordy enough.
While I do not yet feel confident talking about my planes (the F4U-4, Ki-43, A6M3, P-51) authoritively, I could still imagine writing articles on par with Rinhord’s about basic experiences flying those aircraft with full-real controls would come very useful to people in my position a mere few months ago - looking for their learner aircraft and are curious about cockpit visibility, trim settings, MEC settings and weird little quirks to look out for.
Based on this, the kind of “Hey, you should look out for these quirks and these are screenshots of the cockpit/canopy because you cannot test-flight TT vehicles without unlocking them” I’m thinking and would’ve loved months ago would be rejected.
The new article method is completely wrong. It feels more like google map reviews than an encyclopedia. Does not feel professional and the location of the info is pratically a mess.
The new wiki should not have been released, and simultaneously become the officially supported main wiki, if it has come so unfinished. You can’t really blame the players for this one, the old wiki was just so much better.
Why was the ammunition storage areas removed from the wiki for ground vehicles? It was a really useful feature however without it, the only way to work out the ideal amount of ammo to take so that it is not stored in exposed areas is to use trial and error in the test drive
usage in battle was just some dude writing it and often plain wrong or at the very least, terrible. Sometimes even contradicting itself.
vehicle history and external links are still there, in its own articles.
again, allergic to QoL changes? now you don’t have to start up the game. especially if you’re looking at the wiki on your phone.
I think thats the point, you cant edit the vehicle stats etc so there’s no misinformation. what you can write about vehicles is in articles that get checked before they are released.
your post kinda just screams “i hate change, give me the thing i’m already used to back”. down to the boomer mindset and unironically typing “back in the good old days”, disgusting. tzeentch would be disappointed in you.
I think that’s the whole point, random users not being able to edit vehicle pages anymore. Since you are a wikipedia editor yourself, you should know how much people love to troll and spread misinformation with edits. Aren’t wiki editors over there correcting tens of thousands of articles a day, or even more?
Same goes for the usage in battle category. Anyone could write anything there, and it was often bad advice, terribly outdated or outright wrong. That’s most likely why they carried those, together with historical info, over to articles that they can moderate by reviewing them before releasing them.
You generally speaking cannot compare the war thunder wiki to wikipedia. Also most larger edits require permission from admins, happenened when i made a family page on the WZ551. Also I have never seen a troll on the war thunder wikis compared to the tonnes I see on wikipedia.
Both of which, idk you are hating on. The “inaccuracy” in usage in battle is often exaggerated, and it taught me how to use the ISU-152 properly, so i don’t know why you hate it so much. As for vehicle history, it provided historical context for lesser known vehicles especially boats and even had some pretty good refrecnes in the external links section.
