Real-time 3D visualization of space
https://celestiaproject.space/forum/
https://celestiaproject.space/forum/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=8195
Malenfant wrote:BTW, should we post script questions here or on the wikibook? Personally I'd rather post my questions here.
hank wrote:If you put your questions in the wikibook, it would create a FAQ that could be useful to others in the future.
Malenfant wrote:hank wrote:If you put your questions in the wikibook, it would create a FAQ that could be useful to others in the future.
Well, we have a perfectly usable forum here, the format is IMO much better for asking questions and storing the answers for future reference. Plus I don't feel all that secure with wikis anyway.
Malenfant wrote:If it's all the same to you I'd much rather continue to post here. At least it's more useful for people here rather than getting them to go elsewhere to look for answers.
Code: Select all
KM_PER_LY = 9.46728E12
KM_PER_AU = 149597870.691
camera = celestia:getobserver()
planet = celestia:find("Mars") -- finds object named Mars
camera:center(planet,1)
celestia:select(planet)
cameraPosition = camera:getposition() -- gets position of observer
planetPosition = planet:getposition() -- gets position of Mars
distance = planetPosition:distanceto(cameraPosition) -- gets distance from position of Mars to that of observer
distAU = distance/KM_PER_AU
celestia:flash("Current distance to Mars is "..distAU.. " AU")
wait(2)
info = planet:getinfo()
albedo = info.albedo
celestia:flash("Mars albedo is "..albedo)
wait(2)
radius = planet:radius()
planmag = -26.73 - (5 * (math.log10(((math.sqrt(albedo))*radius)/149597870.691)))
celestia:flash("Absolute magnitude of Mars is "..planmag)
Malenfant wrote:Well, I find this is a much better way to actually ask questions. On the Wiki I wouldn't have a clue who's answering me or even whether my question's been answered without having to wade through the text - here's it's laid out a lot better IMO.
Malenfant wrote:I agree that a wiki is a good place to STORE information though. Couldn't we just as easily make a FAQ to put on the wiki out of answers to questions posted here?
hank wrote:If you think the layout or content of the wikibook needs improvement, just do it! That's the whole idea of a wiki -- continuous improvement by a collaborative community.
Malenfant wrote:Of course. But if you ask the question at the wiki, it will eliminate the step of transferring the question and answer to the wiki. Also, it encourages you to look to the wiki first for answers, which is eventually where they should be. The problem is that the wiki hasn't reached critical mass yet, so there aren't many people keeping it up to date. It's a chicken and egg problem.
Code: Select all
KM_PER_AU = 149597870.691
camera = celestia:getobserver()
planet = celestia:find("Mars") -- finds object named Mars
camera:center(planet,1)
celestia:select(planet)
cameraPosition = camera:getposition() -- gets position of observer
planetPosition = planet:getposition() -- gets position of Mars
distance = planetPosition:distanceto(cameraPosition) -- gets distance from position of Mars to that of observer
distAU = distance/KM_PER_AU
celestia:flash("Current distance to Mars is "..distAU.. " AU")
wait(2)
info = planet:getinfo()
albedo = info.albedo
celestia:flash("Mars albedo is "..albedo)
wait(2)
radius = planet:radius()
planmag = -26.8 - (5 * (math.log10(((math.sqrt(albedo))*radius)/149597870.691)))
celestia:flash("Absolute magnitude of Mars is "..planmag) je travaille 
)
]:
Thanks for correcting the values, Symaski. But look here: http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/fa ... nfact.html
The magnitude of the sun is -26.74 according to NASA, not -26.8. I'm more inclined to believe the NASA page than the Wiki.
But I'll correct the values in my script
(I hope my french is understandable!
Malenfant wrote:I understand that, but then that begs the question of what this board is for? At least on a threaded board like this you can easily identify the unanswered questions and which threads have been answered.
I'm all for the wiki being an ultimate repository of knowledge, I just don't think the discussion page is anywhere near as friendly a way to post questions and answers than this board.
And also, I'm just starting with the scripting lark here, and I wouldn't have thought to go to the wikibook to ask questions - but a Scripting forum right here with the other Celestia boards seems a much more obvious place to start, and I think you're more likely to attract attention to interesting scripts if they're posted here too.
Malenfant wrote:I'm all for the wiki being an ultimate repository of knowledge, I just don't think the discussion page is anywhere near as friendly a way to post questions and answers than this board.
I agree that the wiki page isn't very helpful as currently organized. It's too much like a forum discussion, but without the posts identified separately and listed sequentially. I think the page should be reorganized as a FAQ, with each question in a separate section, the question used as the section title, the sections organized by topic, and the answers edited for conciseness and accuracy. You're right that the wiki is the place to store answers. That's so users can find answers to their questions without having to ask, and can also find answers to questions they didn't know to ask.Malenfant wrote:
It's more that on a forum like this, any new questions are easily seen. Right now, the discussion page on the wiki is a bit of a disorganised mess - I can't easily tell without having to wade through it all who's asking what or what the answers are or if the answers given are final or correct. I don't think any amount of reorganising will help that - I just don't really think that wikis were designed really to be places to ask questions - I get the impression that they're intended to be places to store the answers to questions.
The forum gives questions and answers short-term visibility, but once the threads have been pushed off the front page they basically disappear. And often the threads wander off subject, so some questions and answers are not indicated in the thread title. And you typically have to read through a long discussion to get a complete and correct answer. But granted, even with a well-organized wiki, it's a lot easier to just pop off your question on the forum and let others devote their time to educating you than to invest even a minimal amount of your own time to trying to find the answer on the wiki.Malenfant wrote:I understand that, but then that begs the question of what this board is for? At least on a threaded board like this you can easily identify the unanswered questions and which threads have been answered.
I'm all for the wiki being an ultimate repository of knowledge, I just don't think the discussion page is anywhere near as friendly a way to post questions and answers than this board.
Malenfant wrote:And also, I'm just starting with the scripting lark here, and I wouldn't have thought to go to the wikibook to ask questions - but a Scripting forum right here with the other Celestia boards seems a much more obvious place to start, and I think you're more likely to attract attention to interesting scripts if they're posted here too.
BrainDead wrote:If I may, Hank... I'm afraid that I have to agree with Malenfant here... I have real trouble trying to understand the formatting, headers, etc on the Wikibook, but here I can very easily post code, ask questions and return to see replies at any time. I also do NOT receive any indication that the Wiki site has been updated even though I'm watching the entire topic and the discussion page. I think the Wikibook site would be a great way to store educational material, but it's very difficult to ask questions there. Just my opinion.Malenfant wrote:I understand that, but then that begs the question of what this board is for? At least on a threaded board like this you can easily identify the unanswered questions and which threads have been answered.
I'm all for the wiki being an ultimate repository of knowledge, I just don't think the discussion page is anywhere near as friendly a way to post questions and answers than this board.
And also, I'm just starting with the scripting lark here, and I wouldn't have thought to go to the wikibook to ask questions - but a Scripting forum right here with the other Celestia boards seems a much more obvious place to start, and I think you're more likely to attract attention to interesting scripts if they're posted here too.
hank wrote:I agree that the wiki page isn't very helpful as currently organized. It's too much like a forum discussion, but without the posts identified separately and listed sequentially. I think the page should be reorganized as a FAQ, with each question in a separate section, the question used as the section title, the sections organized by topic, and the answers edited for conciseness and accuracy.
But granted, even with a well-organized wiki, it's a lot easier to just pop off your question on the forum and let others devote their time to educating you than to invest even a minimal amount of your own time to trying to find the answer on the wiki.
I'm not sure I understand why you think the forum would be a better place to start than the wikibook, except for the fact that the wikibook isn't very well developed. But again, that's the chicken and egg problem. Ideally, the wikibook would have well-developed tutorials, FAQs, reference materials, etc. That would seem to me to make it the obvious starting point for learning.
You're right, that's the problem. No one seems interested in contributing to the wikibook. I think most people just want their questions answered as conveniently as possible. They're not interested in building a knowledge base as a community resource. It's quite possible they wouldn't make use of one if it did exist, when they can get answers with little effort at the forum, letting someone else do the work. There's nothing surprising about that, really. It's quite rational, just basic human nature. I think it's very possible that the whole wiki idea, of collaborative knowledge creation, is not workable. Part of why I'm promoting the wiki here is just my curiosity as to whether it would work. Or not.Malenfant wrote:hank wrote:I agree that the wiki page isn't very helpful as currently organized. It's too much like a forum discussion, but without the posts identified separately and listed sequentially. I think the page should be reorganized as a FAQ, with each question in a separate section, the question used as the section title, the sections organized by topic, and the answers edited for conciseness and accuracy.
Well if you want to do that then by all means go ahead. But I don't think anybody else is that inclined to jump in there and reorganise it.
If you don't mind me saying, you seem almost evangelistic about using the Wikibook. I don't think that's ultimately very helpful - so far you're the only person here on this thread who likes the idea of using it to ask questions on instead of the forum. The fact remains that Wikis were never intended nor were ever designed to be places to ask questions. They're supposed to be repositories of knowledge, like an encyclopedia. You seem to want to turn it into something it's not.
Malenfant wrote:I think this forum serves perfectly well as a place to ask questions. It's alongside all the other boards here so people can pop in and go through the threads and ask casual questions. It's obvious who is answering and what the quality of the answers are. You can easily see when a thread has been updated or responded to here.
As far as I'm concerned, the Wiki discussion page offers no advantages for asking questions whatsoever over the forums, and actually has several disadvantages compared to it. Whereas the Wiki has several advantages in storing the answers to questions and being a place to find information easily than the forums. Therefore it seems much more logical to use the discussion boards to ask questions and the wiki to ultimately store useful answers to those questions.
Malenfant wrote:But granted, even with a well-organized wiki, it's a lot easier to just pop off your question on the forum and let others devote their time to educating you than to invest even a minimal amount of your own time to trying to find the answer on the wiki.
Now you seem to be implying that people don't want to use the wiki because they're too lazy to find answers? I don't think that's a valid assumption at all - it's just that the wiki is simply nowhere near as convenient a place to ask questions.
The whole point of asking questions on a forum is to get others to tell you what they know. Once a knowledge base is accumulated, a wiki can be set up to store it. It's the difference between asking an expert and looking up an encyclopedia. Laziness has nothing to do with it - you just often get a more complete, tailored answer from an expert than you would from an encyclopedia.I'm not sure I understand why you think the forum would be a better place to start than the wikibook, except for the fact that the wikibook isn't very well developed. But again, that's the chicken and egg problem. Ideally, the wikibook would have well-developed tutorials, FAQs, reference materials, etc. That would seem to me to make it the obvious starting point for learning.
As I said - wikis are like encyclopedias. Great if you want a collection of information from which to start learning, but fairly useless if you want to ask questions.
Frankly, I don't think you're going to get very far persuading people that the wiki is a better place to ask questions. If you want to convince people to do things with the wiki then I'd suggest waiting til more people are expert on the subject of scripting and then encouraging them to edit and add information to the wiki that could be used as a reference for others. But insisting that it's a better place to ask questions than a discussion forum seems a tad irrational to me.
hank wrote:Selden,selden wrote:At the request of the person who started this thread (Malenfant) I attempted to split this thread into two parts. Unfortunately, contrary to the documentation, it split the thread *before* the selected post instead of after it. *grump*
Unfortunately, you split the thread while I was in the middle of posting. You'll need to move my post above to the other thread. Is it now going to be your policy to splt a thread whenever an off-topic discussion develops? That would actually be a very good thing, but you're going to be busy.
- Hank
Yes, I understood that from what he said.Malenfant wrote:Actually I asked him to split it myself.
Malenfant wrote: I figured The wiki/forum discussion was too important to have lost in a 'getinfo' thread :).
hank wrote:You're right, that's the problem. No one seems interested in contributing to the wikibook. I think most people just want their questions answered as conveniently as possible. They're not interested in building a knowledge base as a community resource. It's quite possible they wouldn't make use of one if it did exist, when they can get answers with little effort at the forum, letting someone else do the work. There's nothing surprising about that, really. It's quite rational, just basic human nature. I think it's very possible that the whole wiki idea, of collaborative knowledge creation, is not workable. Part of why I'm promoting the wiki here is just my curiosity as to whether it would work. Or not.
I don't see any problem with questions being asked in the forum if the answers are given in the wikibook.
I think your perception of the potential use of wikis is too narrow. They can provide tutorials and FAQs just as well as encyclopedic references.
Usually it's a good idea when you're interested in learning something to first read what you can about it before asking questions. It's not an efficient use of experts' time to be responding to basic questions for which the answers could be found easily in the wiki. And what if an expert is not available at the moment? The wiki is always there.
Again, I'm not insisting that a wiki is a better place to ask questions, but that it could be a more useful place to find answers. But only if people will start contributing to it.
That just isn't true. There are a lot of people with useful knowledge on many aspects of Celestia who have not contributed what they know to the wikibook.Malenfant wrote:In order to create a knowledge base, you need two things - people who have that knowledge to start with, and a load of useful information to put on it. We have neither of those at the moment.
You don't have to be an expert to contribute to the wiki. All you need is to have some knowledge to share that isn't already there. Given the present state of the wikibook, it doesn't take much.Malenfant wrote:In the first case, so far there aren't enough people who are experts on scripting who would be willing to take the time to write down that knowledge in a way that would be useful to people.
I guess I shouldn't be wasting my time.Malenfant wrote: If you want to go ahead and try to impart what you know then by all means do so, but until more people become experts on the subject and are willing to make the same effort, you'll be fairly lonely.
There's no reason why a knowledge base built on the fly should be any more disorganized or incoherent than the forum threads, and potentially it could be much more organized and coherent, because unlike the forums it can be easily edited. But it will never reach that potential unless people are willing to contribute.Malenfant wrote:In the second case, we need something to put there. I think it's rather like wine - you have to let information 'mature' for a bit so you know what is actually important enough to preserve and what isn't. Making an information base on the fly will just result in a disorganised, incoherent mess. It's already been pointed out that the key letter in FAQ is the F - the fact that questions that have been frequently asked end up on there so people can look up the answers without asking the same things over and over (theoretically. You still get a lot of newcomers who ask questions without realising a FAQ is there or even what it is).
I hope you're right. But I'm doubtful.Malenfant wrote:I think answers will end up on the wiki eventually - hopefully myself and Bob at least are learning the ropes but we'll probably get to the stage where we can write our own little 'articles' about how to do something on the wiki. But right now it's too soon for that I think.
I guess our disagreement is whether useful information should be put in the wikibook right away, or whether it should wait until some vague time "later on".Malenfant wrote:I don't see any problem with questions being asked in the forum if the answers are given in the wikibook.
Well I'd much rather see the answers given here on the forum too, and then transferred to the wikibook later on. Not as a part of a discussion page there, but as separate 'articles' in their own right.
Your emphasis seems to be on "actually asking questions", rather than finding answers. It's true, if someone can't or won't make use of an on-line information resource, the wikibook will not be helpful to them.Malenfant wrote:I think your perception of the potential use of wikis is too narrow. They can provide tutorials and FAQs just as well as encyclopedic references.
Yes, but the point is that they're still reference material. They're a place to find answers and help without actually asking someone. If thinking of it as an encyclopaedia doesn't click then think of it as a textbook or a guide too. But the problem with wikis is that they were never intended to be a place where one could actually ask questions. The way they're set up just doesn't lend itself to that anywhere near as well as a forum.
Malenfant wrote:Usually it's a good idea when you're interested in learning something to first read what you can about it before asking questions. It's not an efficient use of experts' time to be responding to basic questions for which the answers could be found easily in the wiki. And what if an expert is not available at the moment? The wiki is always there.
Well arguably the experts would be spending their time writing wiki articles instead of answering questions. Writing articles might be better in the long term, but if someone needs an answer to a question that isn't in the wiki then what are they supposed to do?
Again, there are lots of people who could improve the wikibook right now, if they were willing to contribute.Malenfant wrote:Again, I'm not insisting that a wiki is a better place to ask questions, but that it could be a more useful place to find answers. But only if people will start contributing to it.
Sure. But "answers" really means "information on how to do stuff". And right now it seems that there aren't enough people who know enough on the subject to transcribe what they know there.
Malenfant wrote:And another thing is that a forum provides the expert with some degree of satisfaction too - you get feedback from the people who want your knowledge. On a wiki, you don't really get that.
hank wrote:That just isn't true. There are a lot of people with useful knowledge on many aspects of Celestia who have not contributed what they know to the wikibook.
Malenfant wrote:You don't have to be an expert to contribute to the wiki. All you need is to have some knowledge to share that isn't already there. Given the present state of the wikibook, it doesn't take much.
There's no reason why a knowledge base built on the fly should be any more disorganized or incoherent than the forum threads, and potentially it could be much more organized and coherent, because unlike the forums it can be easily edited. But it will never reach that potential unless people are willing to contribute.
I guess our disagreement is whether useful information should be put in the wikibook right away, or whether it should wait until some vague time "later on".
Your emphasis seems to be on "actually asking questions", rather than finding answers. It's true, if someone can't or won't make use of an on-line information resource, the wikibook will not be helpful to them.
Yes, I think that contributing to the wiki generally could have more long-term benefit to the community than answering individual questions in the forum. But if something isn't in the wiki, a question in the forum is quite useful and proper, as it will helpfully call attention to the missing fact so that the wiki can be updated.
Again, there are lots of people who could improve the wikibook right now, if they were willing to contribute.
Malenfant wrote:Yes, that's one of the basic questions about the wiki paradigm: Is egoless knowledge creation sociologically feasible? Perhaps it is not.