On Sun, 18 Nov 2001, Jason Knight wrote:
> There ought to be a way to encourage people to build this sort of
> Wiki information on a game /before/ they apply for a mailing list. If
> you can persuade people to build their web site here, they're
> committed already. Drawback, can turn the Phoenyx into a free
> webhosting service.
I think that this is a very good idea. There are some odd technical
drawbacks, though.
As we're doing it now, each game gets its own "web". A web is physically
a directory full of files... to create a new web, we copy "_default" to
a directory of the same name as the web ("Rumors"). That function cannot
currently be done through the TWiki interface.
When you create new topics (pages) in TWiki, every page is dumped in the
current web's directory. If you have 1000 topics in Rumors, you've got
1000 text files in the Rumors directory. There's no easy way to pick up a
whole set of files and move them somewhere else without manually
specifying each one. (You *can* move a topic from one web to another by
moving the file, though. The files are pretty much web-independent.)
So... we really don't want to let potential GM's create their own webs
willy-nilly. As you said... free web-hosting of sorts. But if we create
a "Development" web and let potentials create in sub-areas of that web,
moving them becomes a pain. (Unless we can convince them to use a unique
identifier in all topic names, which then becomes redundant when the files
get moved.) (Hum... we *could* write a script that identifies all local
(non-cross-web) WikiWords, recurses through all the pages and moves
referenced files. That probably wouldn't be that difficult.)
We could let potentials set up new webs with the technical restriction
that new webs that aren't added to an "approved" list get deleted after
sixty days or something. (How do public Wiki's avoid becoming temporary
repositories for warez and porno?)
I'm thinking "build a web site" based on a starting form or something
might be a very good replacement for the current application process.
> I also see this as a replacement for Worldmaking. Am not quite
> sure the mechanics, but it seems more workable than the mailing
> list - no need to track down old messages to review what's being
> discussed, etc.
I keep seeing this in regards to collaborative design. One of the first
things I thought of when I discovered Wiki was that it would be great to
facilitate building the Fudge Guide, a spell list for the Fudge Gramarye,
etc. I think Worldmaking would work better in this environment.
One of the issues I had with it though was avoiding the Wiki sapping all
of a mailing list's discussion. When I first put up the Fudge Wiki, I saw
a flurry of discussion in it... some of that discussion was brought back
to the list, but I keep worrying that there's some redundancy here and I'm
not sure which half is the redundant one.
-- --------------------------------------------------------------
Game(s): Fudge, Worldmaking, Fantasy Co-Editor, Phoenyx Co-Owner
Listowner tools are found at http://www.phoenyx.net/listowners/
