ALFA Wiki.

[Ulyetia]

Firstly, I know this being my first post may seem a little forward, but hey ideas are ideas. Next, I didnt know which section of the forums this would be the most pertinent so I just threw it in here as it sort of made sense. If it should be somewhere else, could a mod move it.

Alright, so here goes.

I was thinking that an idea that would help the community keep track of who characters are, who players are, organisations within the worlds, even give a good place to have the rules and structures of ALFA within would be to have it all stored within an ALFA Wiki.

Players could have character Bio's up there, backstories, journals, guild information and general descriptions of places within the worlds. And the Player Manual, Technical Documentation and other things like that could also be included.

I personally have some limited experience with wiki sites, but from what Ive seen they arent overly difficult to establish being that they are all essentially based on one template.

Just throwing the idea out there, I do not know if it has been discussed before, just wanted to see some opinions.

Thanks,

Uly.

[hollyfant]

I'm conflicted about this idea. On the one hand, having a resource detailing what a character could know had they grown up in the areas we cover would be A Good Thing. Easy access to more private, detailed information on the other hand will only give rise to accusations of meta-gaming and other drama.

Most of the IC organizations have a forum either on this board or off-site. It seems that suffices for most, so putting in the effort of a centralized wiki might not be worth it.

[Ulyetia]

That's fair enough, I wasnt proposing that there be a mandated must do for such a thing.
I was just saying, I for one like to read background stories for characters. If players wanted to post their background in a "my character would probably tell you this" kind of way, then theres not really an issue.

Either way, the wiki format might still be something to think about for the player manual and other things like that regardless, as it does work well and most people who come into the site without knowledge of ALFA would probably be able to navigate a wiki reasonably easily.

[furtivefigure]

I've often thought it would be good to have some kind of archive of past and present ALFA PCs. Not sure how much information should be divulged though, as it could obviously lead to some unnecessary meta gaming. Could just describe a character in one or two paragraphs. To cut down on work, maybe only include PCs who've made it to lvl 2.

If something like this isn't in the cards, I would atleast love to see some statistics for PCs - that is, the race and class distribution, cultural distribution, etc. This would be very interesting to me.

[Riotnrrd]

Wiki is fairly easy to set up, and would be a great place for documentation for builders, DMs, etc... a LOT of our documentation is all over the place and hard to find / has broken links / is outdated, etc. PC backstories would be great to have there too, but I believe DMs should generally have their own forums for this... it might be easier to organize / store / read in wiki format...

WE APPRECIATE YOUR IDEAS! Please, keep them coming. We need them!

[Faeryl]

Yes, please keep the ideas coming. I personally put a high value on the thoughts and opinions of our new members. It's easy to get in a rut after a while and fresh perspectives help to keep us thinking in new directions.

However, in the case of a wiki, Zic is already thinking in that direction.
From this thread: http://www.alandfaraway.org/forums/view ... 20&t=42141

All right,

I've submitted us to dmoz, and awaiting a reply which should come any day now. This should increase our rank on alexa dramatically.

Also, I will be adding google adwords for us, as I have a couple coupons with $80 or so total for this.

I have set up google adsense for unauthenticated (users not logged in) on the front page. Could make us a few bucks when we start getting more traffic. Adsense means the adds that will show are related to what we do, eg roleplaying and neverwinter nights. They are text only, so it doesn't look too bad.

Finally, I'll set up a cafepress acct so we can offer tshirts and coffeemugs and stuff with our logo on it. We have enough people geeky enough to actually wear them, and when people go "hey whats that" then that's free PR.

Once we get a nice enough alexa rating, we can make a nice wikipedia page for ALFA,- that should yield quite a bit of relevant traffic also.

Ulyetia, would you consider joining the Public Relations team to help us with ideas on new ways to advertise and promote ALFA?

[HEEGZ]

Firstly, I know this being my first post may seem a little forward, but hey ideas are ideas. Next, I didnt know which section of the forums this would be the most pertinent so I just threw it in here as it sort of made sense. If it should be somewhere else, could a mod move it.

Alright, so here goes.

I was thinking that an idea that would help the community keep track of who characters are, who players are, organisations within the worlds, even give a good place to have the rules and structures of ALFA within would be to have it all stored within an ALFA Wiki.

Players could have character Bio's up there, backstories, journals, guild information and general descriptions of places within the worlds. And the Player Manual, Technical Documentation and other things like that could also be included.

I personally have some limited experience with wiki sites, but from what Ive seen they arent overly difficult to establish being that they are all essentially based on one template.

Just throwing the idea out there, I do not know if it has been discussed before, just wanted to see some opinions.

Thanks,

Uly.

There is actually an idea out there to create some IC forums for each server. I think that players could post the kind of information you are referring to in one of these. Here's the thread where the idea was proposed:

http://www.alandfaraway.org/forums/view ... 84#p506484

[zicada]

We already have the functionality for this in the website system we're using, so there's really no need to set anything up per say,- more a matter of handing out privileges.
So the issue here is not a technical one.

Any idea to use the website more is good in my mind though

[zicada]

Wiki is fairly easy to set up, and would be a great place for documentation for builders, DMs, etc... a LOT of our documentation is all over the place and hard to find / has broken links / is outdated, etc. PC backstories would be great to have there too, but I believe DMs should generally have their own forums for this... it might be easier to organize / store / read in wiki format...

WE APPRECIATE YOUR IDEAS! Please, keep them coming. We need them!

I've posted about that quite a few times.

THE CURRENT WEBSITE IS JUST LIKE A WIKI, I've asked for people to help sort out the player manual and other documentation so many times i can't even count them.
I'm very liberal with giving people access to edit and write that stuff.

Please, if anybody wants to actually work on the documentation stuff, just let me know and you'll get full access.

Uythia, good points. I've already set you up with the permissions required to make changes to all the content. Enjoy

[edit]

Added riot also.

[zicada]

Once we get a nice enough alexa rating, we can make a nice wikipedia page for ALFA,- that should yield quite a bit of relevant traffic also.

What I meant by that, is a page on the actual site http://www.wikipedia.org. It get's a truckload of traffic. So by being allowed to have a page there, we would possibly gain quite a bit more traffic as well.

[zicada]

Hey, I don't mean to sound pissy by the way

I've just been trying to sell the notion that we pretty much already have a "wiki" for a year or so,- it's mildly irritating that I seem to fail so badly at it. I'm not sure how many hours I spent getting all the old (and yes outdated and horrible) stuff off the old website and into this one so that anyone could easily edit and fix and help out,- but I'm guessing around 250 or so.

Now, I don't know THAT much about alfa-lore, nor do i know THAT much about rules, the inner working of the ACR, or what DM documentation should and shouldn't be around. Alot of people do have edit-privs, and I submit that editing and updating here, is as easy as, or easier than, most of your run of the mill wiki-software.

I guess the problem is that since I'm not giving all users free range to edit anything, people assume the site is static rather than dynamic.

So again, anyone who has any interest and knowledge of what should go where and the time to want to help us out, please let me know so I can grant you edit-rights.

To add another page that would be outside of our actual website would be counter-productive to the whole idea of one-site-to-rule-them-all, such as the recent integration of the forums. What we want is for everyone to use the actual site more!

Sorry about hijacking your thread OP

[Faeryl]

What I meant by that, is a page on the actual site http://www.wikipedia.org. It get's a truckload of traffic. So by being allowed to have a page there, we would possibly gain quite a bit.

I knew what you meant Zic.

Hey, I don't mean to sound pissy by the way

I've just been trying to sell the notion that we pretty much already have a "wiki" for a year or so,- it's mildly irritating that I seem to fail so badly at it.

I actually like the way you've set up the site. What we need now is a person or two to go through and identify those pages with broken links or outdated info, talk to the relevant admin/staff for what should be there, and begin updating the pages.

I have an empty Staff position, so if there are no objections I would like to make that a Documentation Staff Head. I know Rotku started updating the Player's Manual, but I'm not sure how far along he is. This would help coordinate those efforts. Anyone interested in working on our documentation?

[zicada]

Since what normally distinguishes a wiki from a traditional site is the fact that 'everybody can change', perhaps we should do a trial of every alfa-member (eg, already accepted) can edit ?

Should it for some reason turn completely nutters, we could just revert back as i do db-backups weekly.

The more i think about this, the more it's starting to make some sense. Then, we can do a global-announcement with some simple howto's for revisions and such.

[Faeryl]

That might work too Zic. The problem now I think is that no one knows that it's OK to make changes to the site. Opening it to everyone lets them know that this is ALFA's site, not just the Admin's site.

[HEEGZ]

Please keep the DM Documentation only open to the Admin, HDM, ADM, PADM, and DMA Staff usergroups.

I am planning on working on this next month, but if there are DMs who want to start on it now I won't complain.