Launching Liquipedia Rocket League

At the start of the summer we asked the people on r/RocketLeague if they’d be willing to help start up a wiki. And they/you were, so today we’re officially launching the Liquipedia Rocket League Wiki. It has required a lot of work and we want to thank everyone who has helped contribute to the project, and to all who might still help out in the future, to make the wiki an even better resource!

If you’re new to the Rocket League wiki there’s a few key features we would like to highlight.
Firstly the menu bar at the top of the page has four drop down menus - the first being the Trending menu where the top 5 most visited pages today are shown. Then there’s the Tournaments menu item where we list Upcoming, Ongoing and Recently concluded tournaments.

On our main page we also have the Tournaments list, but besides that we list Upcoming and Live Matches, if they’re live and we know the stream there’s a direct link to it.
We also list Recent Player Transfers, so you can see if there’s been any movement of pro players the last couple of days. And there is also links to our overview pages of professional Players, Teams and Tournaments.

The wiki is in a pretty good place, however there’s always room for improvement, ideally we want to increase our coverage of the professional scenes outside of Europe.

Interview

The RL wiki would not be where it is without the help of two key people: Vogan and TWildMan. The amount of their contributions both together and individually can’t be overstated, so we’ve of course added them as trial LP staff members, we also decided to ask them a few questions.

Hello guys, please introduce yourselves.

Vogan: I'm a 21 year old computer science student.
TWildMan: I am 20 years old from Norway. I got Rocket League with the free PlayStation Plus deal in July 2015, and ever since then it has been a big part of my life, both playing and the competitive scene.

First question is the hardest one: What are your favourite Pizza toppings?

Vogan: Pepperoni.
TWildMan: Chilies – it can make any pizza ten times better, but it can also ruin a pizza so it really depends on the restaurant.

Interesting choices. Onto the second question and incidentally the second hardest question: What weapon would you choose to survive the zombie apocalypse?

TWildMan: A machete or a katana would be pretty cool.
Vogan: My amazing Rocket League skills.

Interesting, interesting, I guess neither of you would survive very long with these weapons. Oh well let’s just hope it happens after our lifetimes. So a tiny bit more serious now, when did you get into Rocket League esports and what kinds of involvement have you had with it?

Vogan: I've been involved as a player in competitive Rocket League since day one and have been playing at the top tier since.
TWildMan: I first heard about Rocket League eSports through the Rocket League subreddit, and I started watching some streams. It was not until the RLC Pro League that I started watching it a lot, but ever since then I have been a huge fan. At this point I have probably spent more time watching Rocket League tournaments, than playing Rocket League myself.

When did you first hear about Liquipedia or Team Liquid and what made you decide to help create the Liquipedia Alpha Wiki for Rocket League?

Vogan: Rocket League did not have a proper wiki when Liquipedia made a post on Reddit looking for volunteers. I felt it was badly needed, so I tried to help out from the get-go. I've been contributing to it in a myriad of ways since, including creating and updating tournament/player/team pages, creating the portals, updating templates and a bunch of other things.
TWildMan: I heard about Liquipedia for the first time when they were looking for people to contribute to the Rocket League Alpha Wiki. I thought it was something I could help with, because I felt like I had a lot of knowledge about the scene. After a while I realized I wanted to continue to help because I thought this was something that Rocket League as an eSport could really benefit from, and because I personally learned a lot about the history of teams and players through contributing.

What has been the most rewarding part of this experience so far?

Vogan: Being able to click through what is essentially the entire history of Rocket League and just seeing the amount of data we've assembled.
TWildMan: The most rewarding part for me is when all of a player’s or team’s history and results is available to look through. Then you can see how a team went from being okay to really good, or the other way around. It also helps explain roster changes and why teams chose to disband/form.

And on the flip side of that, what has been the hardest part?

TWildMan: The hardest part for me would be when you are looking for a source for something and you cannot find it, so you are stuck without a source or lacking some information, and you don’t feel like the page is complete.
Vogan: Finding a decent number of contributors that can function on their own has been difficult, and we're not there yet.

And if anything what has been the greatest learning experience so far?

TWildMan: I have learned a lot since the first time I tried to create a page so I am not really sure what I can call the greatest learning experience. Maybe just understanding how everything on the wiki works and is interrelated, because when I started contributing I had no idea.
Vogan: Teams and organisations are truly terrible at naming themselves and getting a good logo. It's as if they want people to be confused.

Which tips would you give to any aspiring Liquipedia contributor to get started smoothly? Like if you could go back in time, what tips would you give yourself when you started out?

TWildMan: Unless you have done this on other wikis then I do not think there is such a thing as a smooth start; there will always be something that you do not understand or forget in the beginning. However if you ask for help, and are open to receive help, the learning process will be much quicker.
If I could go back in time I would tell myself that a half finished page can be saved in word or as a user page. That way you do not have to continue, when you do not feel like it.
Vogan: Don't be afraid to ask questions, but also be sure to tell those same people to let you figure things out, because they'll go in and stealthily edit all your mistakes out.

Both of you have helped shape the wiki to its current form, but a wiki is of course never finished, so which sections of the wiki would you say still need some polishing?

Vogan: Right now, things are in a pretty decent state, however, I just want more of everything. More tournaments, more teams, more players, more automation.
TWildMan: I think all the regions except for EU could use more player, team and tournament pages, but that really comes down to having contributors with extensive knowledge and the time to do it.

Is there anything you’d like to add?

Vogan: No….. In all seriousness, the Liquipedia staff has been very helpful. Whether asking about wiki conventions to needing a bizarre bracket, they're pretty much always willing to help.
TWildMan: I would just like to say thank you to the Liquipedia staff, especially tolkienfanatic for teaching me how stuff works and being patient so that I could contribute to this Wiki.


Liquipedia Rocket League