LotS/SMWMigration
This article is aimed at ZoyWiki editors who edit pages in the LotS prefix.
Semantic MediaWiki (henceforth referred to as SMW) is a plugin for MediaWiki that allows us to treat each page as a first level data source. Essentially, this means we can create large complicated list pages without blowing up ZoyWiki.
The Problem
First, and most importantly we need to stop creating new pages with manually maintained lists. A manually maintained list might look like:
{| class="lotstable sortable" width="100%"
! width=10% | Type
! width=40px | Icon
! width="23%" | Name
! width="46%" | Ability
! width="23%" | Obtained
|-
{{LotS/HealingRow|Daikaiju Destroyer Rifle}}
{{LotS/HealingRow|Sian Dragons Right Knuckles}}
{{LotS/HealingRow|Sludge Scavenger Pistol}}
{{LotS/HealingRow|Smythe Laboratories Inc. Injector}}
... This might go on for dozens or even hundreds of items ...
|}
The problem with this approach is two-fold. First, we have a significant number of these pages, and manually maintained means that someone has to know the page exists and has the desire to maintain it indefinitely into the future. Anything outside of the main pages linked in the standard item page header are likely to be forgotten and become useless when their main editor eventually stops. Second, the templates these lists use are necessarily very heavy. The amount of computation time it has started to take generate the Officers page crashed or severely lagged up ZoyWiki on more than one occasion. For these reasons, we need to start migrating all manual lists to use SMW formatting and replace the manual lists.
The Solution
Parser Profile before: (Off Hand)
| CPU time usage | 24.632 seconds |
|---|---|
| Real time usage | 25.788 seconds |
| Preprocessor visited node count | 59078/1000000 |
| Preprocessor generated node count | 20933/1000000 |
| Post-expand include size | 433505/2097152 bytes |
| Template argument size | 119503/2097152 bytes |
| Highest expansion depth | 13/40 |
| Expensive parser function count | 295/792 |
After:
| CPU time usage | 7.109 seconds |
|---|---|
| Real time usage | 7.326 seconds |
| Preprocessor visited node count | 13711/1000000 |
| Preprocessor generated node count | 27667/1000000 |
| Post-expand include size | 561146/2097152 bytes |
| Template argument size | 121335/2097152 bytes |
| Highest expansion depth | 6/40 |
| Expensive parser function count | 0/792 |
TODO: Write about how to create new SMW pages
Conversion Progress
Known Converted
- LotS/Equipment Sets
- LotS/items/Main Hand
- LotS/items/Off Hand
- LotS/items/Helmet
- LotS/items/Chest
- LotS/items/Gloves
- LotS/items/Pants
- LotS/items/Boots
- LotS/items/Trinkets
- LotS/items/Utilities
- LotS/items/Officers
- LotS/items/Crew
- LotS/raids/type
Known Needs Conversion
TODO: Add more pages to the lists as they're known.