ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

Wel lIw as reading the "You know when you've been playing too much ToME" thread and thought a wiki would be nice to store for this kinda of stuff. Maybe for DiTL archive too.

Well, do you think it would be usefull ?
Would you use it ?

What's a wiki???

From Wikipedia:

A Wiki is a collection of interlinked web pages, any of which can be visited and edited by anyone at any time (collaborative software).
"Wiki wiki" means "super fast" in the Hawaiian language.

Edit: ToME is in the Wikipedia.

I'd be in favor of replacing the forum with a wiki, but not having two things to monitor.

Seriously, a wiki would be:

1. A better repository of lists like spoilers, character logs, character sheets, bug reports, ideas, frequently asked questions, documentation, and more.

2. Easier to use

3. Easier to administer

4. Probably more fun

5. Less prone to duplicate threads/topics than the forum.

6. Easier to search

Well, I'd never heard of a Wiki prior to about 30 seconds ago, but Neil makes a strong case for using one. What is the argument against using one? More work for someone to create it in the first place? Loss of old thread topics?

Arguments against a wiki:

1. Anonymous users can do more damage than on a phpbb forum.

Counter: Wiki implementations give tools to monitor and repair. Accounts can be required to change the wiki if necessary.

2. Back to #1, it takes more work to run one because of the monitoring.

Counter: We can at least try it and see if we have enough active users to keep it going.

3. The forum has a lot of established information on it.

Counter: Yes, but people have trouble with it. Spoilers are kept elsewhere, people are constantly calling for new sections, and phpBB is difficult to modify. The wiki would eventually have MORE information on it than the forum.

Besides, we wouldn't have to DELETE the forum. We'd just preferably close it to new posts.

It sounds good. Would it be possible to give this thing a trial run before converting over to it entirely?

I don't mind the extra monitoring. But I'm a little bit disturbed by MM's comment that anyone can edit anything... perhaps I am misunderstanding.

Anyone can edit anything in the original Wiki (Ward's Wiki at http://c2.com/cgi/wiki ) but we can use any wiki engine we want in order to get whatever support for accounts and ACLs that we desire.

I'm evaluating wiki engines right now.

Big yay from me, as long as by replacing the fora with a Wiki the user interaction isn't lost. I mean, the fora are a great place to go to get advice from fellow players, and many times people have questions that have not been asked before and thus couldn't have an entry in a Wiki. How would the Ideas forum look in a Wiki?

A good wiki arguably allows for more interaction because it's easier to use than a phpBB forum.

People can get in the habit of checking the recent changes list and reply to each other a lot.

Yet again, someone's written a document, not a discussion, and wanted to make it sticky.

We need a wiki! This forum is not doing what we need!

I'm examining VikiWiki right now. http://www14.org1.com/~mopia/dynamic/vikiwiki.cgi

I'd say try it, first in addition to the forum, and if it works out and the number of forum post begins to decline noticeable, switch to it completely ...

On the other hand, I somehow like this forum, so I'd be a little loath to see it go ...

/me goes to look at the Wikipedia. Wow. That reminds me quite a bit of Everything2, which I have often thought might work for ToME in a much smaller form. Is it considered a Wiki?

(But the Wikipedia type of interface looks better for us.)

yes a wiki would be useful esp for all the creative suff people are doing right now.

I'm 100% for it, and would write for it.

Advantages:

***anything that's factually incorrect anywhere can be corrected by those that know for sure(and code-dive as necessary). This is much better than the current "read 6 threads completely, and then keyword-search some more just to make sure there isn't the solution or counter-information available in a thread about something else". This is both for searching and making a small FAQ about something... wiki is better, trust me!

I had to check for 15 minutes there wasn't already a rabbit feet FAQ in existence before I made that spoiler FAQ... and checked 5 min more if someone had mistakenly said "bunny feet" or such by mistake(common mistake - I've made it myself originally calling it the bunny FAQ). In wiki that search would be like 5 clicks, because wiki CAN HAVE LIMITLESS SUBCATEGORIES AND EASY-TO-MAKE LINKS! So the FAQ would be under ToME->classes->spoilers->alchemist and under ToME->spoilers->alchemists and could be browsed like that. And updating links is much easier...

***Very small contributions can be made in less than 2 minutes. This allows the less-motivated crowd something to do... less scary than writing a FAQ or knowing your info is drowned at the end of a 3 pages thread with the original un-improved version still present in the thread...

***The wiki style is more factual than opinion. That means we'd get less "my dwarven axemaster rules" thread, instead we'd be fed information on what bonus they have (+0.200 to learning axe mastery from being a dwarf). This may be more impersonal, but more useful.


The main disadvantage:

***It's against wiki rules to speak about yourself - and by extension your character. We could keep the forum for that, and monitor it MUCH LESS since all the correct information is on Wiki soon enough... the entire spoiler forum's important info could be moved to wiki, for a start. Volonteers would look at some threads they're assigned or self-assigned and see if they can improve wiki with that thread or not - then we can mark the thread as {it's in wiki now}

NOTE: wiki code is probably free source; maybe we can run it directly from t-o-m-e.net and adjust rules as needed... that would cost web space of course(unlike wikipedia who is free), but solve the wikipedia-pages-load-slowly plague that I've been experienced - which lasted 6 hours.