This probably sounds ridiculous, but I gotta say it out loud anyway because it’s been driving me bananas for the past few days. I want to create an information resource specifically for Star Trek meme creators. I haven’t been able to get it out of my head, so I think I gotta just build it already.
What would this site even have on it, you ask? Off the top of my head, I’m thinking the contents would consist of: the list of official Trek fonts for all shows (already in progress), links to screencap sites, links to the few Trek meme generators that are out there, software recommendations by platform, maybe a few guides here and there. Basically, all the stuff that would make it possible or easier to make your own Trek memes. Most of us here already have our own workflow set up just the way we want it, but not everybody does, and I’m also thinking a resource like this could help lower the barrier to entry a little.
I write code and documentation for a living, so it’s kinda in my wheelhouse. It would be a fun thing to do on the side, and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t have a platform and host already in mind.
But I’m wondering if this would actually be used? And would anyone here be interested in contributing?
On the other hand, the advantage of using markdown platforms (like Docsify) is that they can be hosted directly from the repo without having to be deployed on a host; yeah, hosting, I forgot to mention, can be a bear to maintain and is not something I’d like to take on or pay for. That shit can get expensive. There are wiki service providers like Nuclino that have a free tier of hosting, but they all look like they’re closed source. One of my requirements is it be open source so anyone can fork it and do what they want with it (also addresses the “what if I get hit by a bus” question). The same goes for other collaborative CMS packages, I don’t wanna deal with hosting.
So something like Docsify would have a higher barrier to entry, but it’s also something I am comfortable with/capable of managing. Even if we had someone volunteer to take on a DevOps role and set up & manage a deployment pipeline, there’s still the issue of the hosting costs. Yeah lol, it sorta comes down to money, and I unfortunately I think I gotta draw a hard line in favor of free open source over free proprietary. omg I don’t know if that sentence makes sense. I’m so baked, what time is it? Is it tomorrow yet?
It’s always tomorrow somewhere :p As for proprietary vs FOSS (typing this from Arch, btw) - I really get it. However, with things like hosting in general which I’ve struggled with finding good solutions for my edits a lot I’m not sure there really is a good solution here. I’d argue that since this is meant to potentially be a resource for all Trek meme editors and/or content creators, then odds are that pure accessibility and low maintenance/hosting costs are going to have to be considered first and foremost. The point I’m trying to make is that IMO this should be able to benefit everyone that could use such a thing, which will unfortunately (IMO) require something proprietary - especially if it actually takes off and eats up a good amount of bandwidth per month. If someone hosted it on their bare metal at home, there could be a lot of a) security risks and b) down time.
Also, this looks promising at a glance. Take a look: https://meta.miraheze.org/wiki/Miraheze Admittedly not FOSS, but it is opensource.
Lol jawa21 you missed a great “I use Arch BTW” opportunity. Hmmm, Miraheze, I didn’t know it existed! I think technically it might count as a FOSS implementation, as it is free and uses Mediawiki. Since they manage the hosting, there wouldn’t be any direct access to the instance’s code, but there’s still the option to do a data export in the event of a necessary migration.
This does look good on paper, lemme look at this some more. I’m trying to picture how this would work for this use case, and I don’t see any red flags just yet. Yeah, solid so far.
Omg I feel called out. Haha, the context of accessibility is slightly different here, but I’m actually the resident web accessibility expert at work. Yeah, I use a screen reader to test functional WCAG compliance for some of our products and have to make recommendations for fixes, if not fix it myself, amongst other things. I’m actually working on a presentation about it. Yeah, this thing would serve others best if it is inclusive. Aight I gotta jet, lemme get back to you on this.
Any other thoughts that come to mind, don’t hesitate to post it here.
I created an account at Miraheze and put in a request for a wiki, which has to be manually approved. The queue has a three day backlog at the moment, so it might be a hot minute before I can give it a test spin. That is, if it’s approved.
I’m probably showing my age, but I really miss Geocities, you know? You had all kinds of cool niche special interest sites about all kinds of things, and this would’ve fit right in there.
Cool. I’d like to see how things turn out. And NeoCities is there if you really want to hand code a wiki lol.
omg I didn’t know that was a thing