User:Xbony2/FAQ

The above is more appropriate for general wiki questions, this FAQ mainly contains questions specific to me and my views

Q: Who are you, and what do you do?
 * A: I am Xbony2, and I'm many things. On the internet, I spend a lot of my productive time wikiing on this here wiki; for a long time, I was the most active editor, although not so much today. I have also sometimes edited other Gamepedia wikis, Wiktionary, and other random wikis on whatever whim. My userpage probably talks a lot about my wiki editing. I used to be somewhat well-known as a mod author, but not so much nowadays. I helped port IC2 Nuclear Control to 1.7 (later World Control) and have contributed a decent amount to Flaxbeard's Steam Power (now Esteemed Innovation, which I haven't spent much time on), and I also have ported and made a few other random mods at certain points (like Long Fall Boots, which a lot of people use). My mod author page probably talks a lot about my modding. I do a lot of non-Minecraft, non-wiki things too, like other video games (Sauerbraten: Cube 2, Pokemon, Bloons Tower Defense 6), running, weight training, spending time with friends, drinking, eating, and sleeping.

Q: How can I contact you?
 * A: Please see here.

Q: What is your gender/pronoun?
 * A: I'm a man (he/him/his).

Q: How did you get your username?
 * A: It simply started as "Bony." I used to be pretty scrawny, although I'm more muscular nowadays. Anyway, I just threw an X on one day, looked cooler I guess. And then one day, a younger and naïver "X-bony" forgot his password and thus "X-bony2" was born, which was simplified into "xbony2," which is sometimes capitalized because MediaWiki likes page names to be capitalized.

Q: Are you single?
 * A: Yea 😳

Q: What is your favorite XYZ?
 * A: I made a list of all of my favorite things on this page (which is probably outdated).

Q: Can you document mod XYZ? / How do you decide to document what mods?
 * A: Well... different wiki editors might mind but I don't think there's any harm in asking the earlier question. However, I have my own agenda and I probably won't document what you ask. The mods I document usually revolve around a number of factors:
 * Newer versions: (1.18 now, geez) I generally believe focusing on newer mods on the newer versions of Minecraft will be more helpful in the long run over documenting mods in old versions, that say have a large but dwindling userbase. Also older mods are generally more documented than newer mods, not necessarily here but in other places, whereas information on newer content is more scattered.
 * How established a mod is: although I think I might enjoy documenting AppleMilkTea just as much as Actually Additions, I'd rather focus on mods that more users would want documentation for. Popularity is not my only focus when choosing to document a mod, but I think it would be hard to argue that being able to please more people isn't an altruistic goal.
 * How much I like a mod: I'm pretty sure this is obvious. I don't get paid, so for the most part I just do what I want. I dislike, or am not impressed with, a lot of mainstream mods, and although I'd like to see documentation on all mods, I don't exactly plan to do everything myself. This includes some mods like Tinkers' Construct and Blood Magic and Applied Energistics 2; I have a pretty different taste than your average player. For me this is my biggest factor.
 * My relationship with the mod author: I don't really talk to many mod authors nowadays, but when me and Ellpeck were close, Actually Additions documentation ended up being prioritized. This isn't necessarily just about personal relationships, having a mod author's endorsement means a lot. If you are a mod author and want documentation, you can ask, although most of us are probably too busy. And of course, this could be a negative factor if I hate some mod author's guts, although fortunately I can't think of any examples for that.
 * Existing wiki documentation: this won't necessarily stop me, but if a mod is already decently documented on say for example, three other wikis, I feel like my newly created documentation wouldn't be as used and valued. I view one of the main goals of this wiki is to be a central repository of all modded Minecraft information (see a few questions down) but realistically I'd prefer to focus on the mods that need new documentation more.

Q: Do you get paid? Do you get any form of compensation or recognition for your work?
 * A: I do not get paid. There is no Gamepedia/Fandom or FTB staff that contributes to this wiki (as in writing for us) and gets paid. Albeit,, one of our admins and probably the second most prolific editor, was hired by Gamepedia for a short period of time. However, his paid work focuses on building new wikis and other behind-the-scenes stuff, not contributing to this wiki. This is one aspect about wiki editing that is perhaps disappointing compared to modding; a mod author can get money from CurseForge but wikis don't have any similar system. The ads on this wiki mainly go towards hosting fees and to pay Fandom staff so they can continue to maintain and create wikis. This aspect does have its benefits however: with money out of the way editors can contribute for the good of the community or for fun without the green taint having the potential to lower quality in favor of increasing bulk.
 * I have received recognition for my work in other ways. In a giveaway in November 2015 to the top 100 editors (ranked by wikipoints), the Gamepedia Team sent me a package with a tee-shirt and a Hydra plushie and a mug and some other things like that (nothing über fancy but nice of them nevertheless. Also included a back scratcher that thought was a fork or something). The Gamepedia Team made me editor of the month for August of 2016 (awarded a bit late, but still) and I received a striking similar package for that, although this package had a cool trophy I have two Hydra plushies which is cool. If you want one, I'm willing to sell one for the starting price of $1,0000,000 I've helped various Gamepedia editors in the past and I think I have some respect as a wiki veteran.
 * In the modded community I'm not well recognized. Not getting much thanks for your work sucks a bit, but it's also nice in a way; I've known some modders that would rather not be so famous. If you want to work with modded Minecraft while avoiding most of the toxicity of the community, maybe consider contributing to this wiki? I've gotten *some* recognition, which is nice, although mostly from older mods (Nuclear Control 2 and others). I was featured on an episode of Behind the Mod by Amaxter (it's a bit old and it was a bit awkward since I was pretty nervous and I'm slightly socially awkward x) but good nevertheless).
 * I was offered a wiki-related job once, which was pretty exciting, but couldn't take it. However, some parts of wikiing has transferred to software engineering and computer science, which is my career.

Q: Can I donate to you? Is there any way I can give to you?
 * A: I don't accept donations. I'm in school and I don't spend my own money very much, while I make decent money from interning and a bit from being an undergraduate teaching assistant. I also get some money from my projects on CurseForge;. Giving me money won't really make my life easier or give me more time to focus on documentation.
 * If you want to help me out another way, helping the wiki out would make me feel great. There are a few ways you can help the wiki (and me by extension):
 * Contributing! Duh. Of course, I can't expect everyone to do that, but it's the most obvious way. If everyone who visited this wiki made an article once a month, we'd really be booming. It would be amazing. Not everyone realizes that the people who contribute to this wiki are all volunteers and documentation does not come out of our butts; we need people like you to make the wiki great.
 * Linking to the wiki in places helps. If you're a mod author, even if it's not your official source of information, if we have a pretty good section on your mod, a link on CurseForge has the potential to be helpful for us. As a regular user, which you might be, you can still link to the wiki on places like Reddit or the forums, and it really does help us (particularly in search results).
 * Fixing things that are wrong or outdated, or minimally reporting them, is great. I often see people complain about certain articles or sections being outdated on Reddit or other places, and usually these people will not fix it themselves (which isn't that hard), or more frustratingly, will not bother to report it to anyone. Obviously this can get on my nerves. You can report an error by complaining on the talk page, complaining on our Discord, contacting me and complaining, or also by putting an Outdated at the top of the page (if it's an issue with it being outdated). It's possible that a complaint could be ignored, but most likely we'll either fix it or add an ambox (like Outdated) at the top of the page so users can be warned and anyone who sees it can come around and fix it, if they happen to be interested.
 * Lastly, you should totally join our Discord server. Say hi. Maybe say thanks; we wiki editors really don't get much thanks (if any at all). Discussions focus on wiki collaboration of course, but there's been plenty of going off-topic (talking about the mod community, gaming, life, communism, etc).

Q: Why document a mod if it already has documentation?
 * A: Well, one might not really think about it, but all mods at least have some documentation. This documentation can range anywhere from a brief CurseForge description to an outdated mod spotlight made in Portuguese to a well-written in-game manual. If you think about it, even the name of a mod is a form of documentation.
 * Part of the reason for this is that a mod's documentation might not be that great. I don't want to insult any mod authors, but some overstate the value of their documentation. A lot of documentation doesn't contain things like exact numbers or metric (which can be important), and generally speaking, some content is descriptibed ambiguously. Sometimes they do this purposely; in-game documentation is often used not to explain everything in precise detail, but rather to get users started and for them to learn the mod as they go. This is a fun approach, but this is not how we approach things on this wiki; we give as much information as possible. If you want to be spoiled then come be spoiled. Some in-game sources might be a pain in the butt to navigate. Ever use the Tinkers' Construct manuals in 1.5.2? There was no search. You had to flip through every page until you found what you were looked for. That is, if you found it at all, maybe it's in the other two books! Oh, and also, the moment you close that book you lose your place. If you want to go back to where you were, better start flipping! Oh, the good ol' days. Plenty of users prefer the wiki format to other forms of documentation. Some people despise wikis and that's okay too...
 * One of the main goals of the FTB Wiki, in my opinion, is to have information on all of modded Minecraft, in one place, in one consistent format. Ideally one should be able to look up whatever they want without going through a hundred different in-game manuals, a hundred different independent wikis, a hundred different YouTube videos, or a hundred different times just figuring it out yourself. This is the ultimate goal of the FTB Wiki; to be the wiki to end all wikis. Obviously there's a lot of work to do, but it is a goal we have.
 * And also... because it's fun! It's not very altruistic but I might document mod XYZ because I like it. If I really like some mod, I don't think it's so evil if I want to go through it and document it, even if it is already documented on some other wiki and/or in-game. This is a hobby after all.

Q: Why do you edit this wiki instead of ftbwiki.org?
 * A: The real reason is because I joined this wiki and started contributing to it first. But if you mean the question in more of the nature of "why would someone (maybe me) want to contribute to this wiki instead of that wiki?" I can answer that too. Personally, I find that this wiki is faster, a bit cleaner under the hood, looks nicer, has more active users, allows for translations (even if it's a messy system at the moment) and has more documentation on the newer versions. Btw, on the topic of looks, if you prefer dark themes, you can actually set this wiki to use a dark theme! more info here However, although one might define our two wikis as rivals, I'd rather focus on improving this wiki rather than "beating" the other wiki or always comparing ourselves to the wiki or whatnot. I can't say I'm not competitive at all, but being focusing on "oh what are they doing" feels like a misuse of energy to me. And anyway, I don't think it's really that easy to say one wiki is better than the other. Comparing two wikis really isn't as easy as one might think it is; statistics regarding size are skewed for various reasons (see User:Xbony2/badnumbers) and other comparable factors can often boil down to personal preference.

Q: Why not merge this wiki with ftbwiki.org?
 * A: Long ago, when both wikis were much smaller, we talked about this. I wasn't there (I wasn't part of the wiki at the time), but we couldn't agree on the exact terms. I wish we could; I don't like the community being split. Now that each wiki is very large and established, merging them would be nearly impossible. We use entirely different templates, extensions, formats, etc., there's ton of overlap and things that could not be easily merged. We have over 24,000 articles each, with plenty of overlap. Changing it all to match one format is very difficult. Obviously, automation can be used, but it isn't that simple. To put it into perspective, try to imagine merging Refined Storage and Applied Energistics 2, except that the amount of content each mod has is equal to all the content in FTB Infinity, and this merging is all worked by two to six unpaid users (because not many will all volunteer, all have the technical abilities to be able to work on it, and all actually work on it enough to be counted). It would probably take a couple years. This is not a realistic task at the moment, and neither wiki has plans to try and tackle it, and not everyone would want to even if we could just do it with a snap to the fingers, each for their own various reasons.

Q: Why is this wiki hosted on Fandom? Aren't they evil or something?
 * A:Originally this wiki was independent, but after the FTB-Curse partnership, it was moved to Gamepedia. This is one of the best things to happen to the wiki; in the self-hosting times, there was a lot of instability and the wiki often crashed or was slow. Now, this is not an issue. The Gamepedia community was pretty friendly and has helped out a lot, and I've had a great experience with them. Fandom on the other hand hasn't had quite the same reputation, but after Fandom bought Gamepedia, they haven't really done much to make the wiki experience different compared to when were on Gamepedia. Unfortunately there has been a decrease in flexibility for certain things, like widgets being effectively disabled, but overall it's been alright. The current Fandom skin looks pretty modern and decent.

Q: Would you be interested in working at my company, Company XYZ, for a paid job?
 * A: Feel free to check my personal website for career information.