I'm an absolute moron for saying this out loud but I've long been dissatisfied with the delay and bureaucracy of getting things up on mudstats and mudconnect and am foolish enough to think I might do a better job without having tried to tackle the same problems before.
A wiki wouldn't be a bad idea, in all seriousness. I would avoid the sites that offer the pre-cooked ones like wikia on a wikifarm -- but mediawiki is not impossible to set up on its own if there's server space for it. (I was able to do it with Bobotrons help and Glitch's tutorial, and if I can do it, it can definitely be done!)
It wouldn't be too hard to set something up as a 'game page' template similar to the way games set up a character page template; it'd just require different fields. Even the categories could be set up in a similar way, just for games instead of characters: potential, active, dead, theme/etc. Since edits can be tracked and reverted as needs be, it isn't as scary to police as it could be if the need ever arises. 
I am in the process of opening a general roleplay site that does what was mentioned: to be a central hub for the community overall. I already purchased the domain name for it. It's currently parked on a small weebly site a fellow player set up since she's just as equally passionate about it as I am.
I just finished building a beefy home server which I plan to use for web dev, Mu* dev and as a personal cloud. I planned on running the community backend on Discourse. I am up in the air for the front-end. WordPress? Ghost? Or GitLab + Jekyll +Prose, if Prose will soon support GitLab instead of the public GitHub. Either implementation will allow collaboration.
Right now I am finishing a few web-presence projects, mostly for my parents who purchased the parts for the aforementioned server.
As to my knowledge of running an online community: I have run a Predator/Yautja fansite going on nine years. I am also rebuilding that. But that and RP are my two biggest mainstays. I am currently sandboxing in between all this IT stuff I am catching up on, but MU* RP will always be my favorite. I want to get back into it and be able to really help.
@purldator said:
words
It's not clear to me from your post if you're asking about collaborating on what I am working on, which is a community-driven game index and general MU*ing community site, or doing your own thing. If it's your own thing, keep on truckin'. If interested in contributing to what I'm doing, the best way is to weigh in on the issues list I linked to earlier.
Already some good input from @Rook in there, by end of this weekend I should be in a good place to put together a quick prototype UI we can argue about. Then comes the data modeling and making it not-static.
I had an extensive post written out for the issues list. I'm glad I held off on posting it.
You are correct that what I plan to do isn't the exact same as what you plan to do. Mine has to do with MU* as well or I wouldn't have mentioned it. Since the original idea is collaboration I wanted share my thoughts on the idea of such an undertaking as you and others have done before you in this topic and see if I could add something or have a firm link to whatever site you wish to create.
The obvious disdain you have in reply to my post for whatever reason was heard loud and clear too. However, in the end it only validates my reasons to do what I want to do and build what I want to build to help the MU* community and the general writing/RP community. SSDD.
Thanks for the encouragement. And the same to you as well.
Something must've gotten lost in translation. No disdain intended at all. Mostly I was just trying to unify communications from discussions on two different MU*s, plus this forum, into one place (ie the Github issue list), but also trying to ensure you didn't feel like I was trying to tell you how to run your own project, if that's what you were doing.
Sincere apologies. Let me know if there's anything I can do to help or clear up intent.
An alternative proposal: Federation.
Rather than having a single monolithic site that proposes to capture all of the community, provide a means for an arbitrary number of sites to be operate cohesively. This would require more work overall than a single site but has a number of advantages.
Given distinct sites, no one person can "take their toys and go home" or fail the bus test. Having distinct sites encourages competitive evolution and tailoring to specific audiences.
What does this look like? At a basic level sites need to be able to easily refer to content on other sites, characters, games, and other people. It should be possible to incorporate data from one site into another.
Off the cuff, the core of this would be federated identity for people and federated identity for games. For people this is Single Sign On, where individual sites can verify your identity in the vein of OpenID, Google/Facebook/Twitter, and OAuth2. Rather than having to sign in to each site, the identity of a player (or character) are validated by a profile site of the player's choosing. Information about games is provided by game registries which fetch the authoritative data from the games themselves.
Ideally, any site where data is generated exposes the public portions of that data in a machine-readable format like XML, JSON, or Protocol Buffers if you're nasty. All private data should be user-exportable. In both cases, sites handling similar data should be able to import that data. If a given forum is about to go tits-up, other forums should be able to slurp up the content and import it into their own sites. If I'm dissatisfied with how one site is handling my character profile or what they allow me to do, I should be able to export all my data and set it up at a site I prefer.
Roughly, this an extension of the idea of Diaspora* but going beyond content expressed in Markdown.
Full disclosure: I'm probably insane.
@purldator said:
I had an extensive post written out for the issues list. I'm glad I held off on posting it.
You are correct that what I plan to do isn't the exact same as what you plan to do. Mine has to do with MU* as well or I wouldn't have mentioned it. Since the original idea is collaboration I wanted share my thoughts on the idea of such an undertaking as you and others have done before you in this topic and see if I could add something or have a firm link to whatever site you wish to create.
The obvious disdain you have in reply to my post for whatever reason was heard loud and clear too. However, in the end it only validates my reasons to do what I want to do and build what I want to build to help the MU* community and the general writing/RP community. SSDD.
Thanks for the encouragement. And the same to you as well.
And now we see (part of) why attempts to create MU* resources often flounder.
Honestly, it sounds like what everyone is talking about already is done by The Mudconnector. While that site is sloppy and frequently out of date because it never prunes old games, it still contains game listing that can be searched by a number of criteria and forums on a number of topics, including forums for both beginning and advanced administrators and coders.
It's also not a community-based project, but which is worse: a site whose problems come from a single administrator holding all the keys, or a site where five or six administrators likely will end up engaging in the same sort of power struggles that everyone has witnessed on a number of games? What do you do when vaspider volunteers to "curate" an area?
I suspect that the problem is not so much that new and better wheels need to be created, but instead that people--i.e., those who don't currently play on MU*s--don't want to ride in the car.
I'm glad people are looking into this. I had a lot of plans along the same lines, but then I ran out of giveadamn for just about everything.
I've added myself to that github index issue though; we'll see.
I am interested in seeing and working on an automated mudstats-style list with detailed statistical monitoring of population trends over time, etc.
@Rince said:
Something must've gotten lost in translation. No disdain intended at all. Mostly I was just trying to unify communications from discussions on two different MU*s, plus this forum, into one place (ie the Github issue list), but also trying to ensure you didn't feel like I was trying to tell you how to run your own project, if that's what you were doing.
Sincere apologies. Let me know if there's anything I can do to help or clear up intent.
I feel like I'm going to burst into waterworks, because you saw the disconnect based on pure textual perceptions sans tone and said a sincere apology.
Thank for that, you don't know how much it means when I've seen so many players shit on each other and me suffocating at the bottom of the pile after trying to help so many with what limited power I had. Your apology is accepted and I apologize in return if my reply was scathing. I've gone through a lot in the MU* community and this is me trying to help based on what I've endured and helping with what I am really good at. So thank you for showing you care for the community by showing empathetic wisdom and maturity when, in the grand scheme of things, you didn't have to.
@Sponge said:
An alternative proposal: Federation.
That was my idea when I showed my current efforts. I personally am not trying to create the end-all site. Mine is very specific but it ties in greatly to MU*.
There can be a website, a single one-page that all affiliated/joined sites can add to. This would be unlike the Mudconnector in that any admin can go and add or delete their link at will. All admins can be like an advisory council and in turn this 'hub' can be the place where all admins can congregate to help gently coordinate things if need be. Not heavily but at least keep others in the know.
One thing I've learned is we need some kind of basic structure. I don't care if it sounds draconian or 'too serious' to some. Having structure is what allowed me to truly help other players with what I could. It's a system that hasn't let me down yet.
I am very open to collaborating on the subject.
EDIT: I have an idea to this federation concept. That is, have this main site's source code hosted on GitHub. A lot of positives stem from hosting via GitHub:
The website is open source. No smoke or mirrors. Everything edited is documented and can also be reverted. Changes made are seen, issues are discussed and there's a good level of transparency, just enough.
It won't disappear if the current host suddenly disconnects. This is how I felt with WORA when someone told me it went under. The code board was indispensable but not even Wayback could archive it since a login was required to view. If the source is always on GitHub then someone else can easily take it and sync it somewhere else. Where it is hosted for public consumption really has no serious bearing.
It's all static files so it's easier to load and easier to maintain and easier with security. Especially if a CDN was involved eventually so anyone, no matter their geo-location, could readily access it. (It also helps with google pagerank; that's one key to getting proper 'exposure' out in the online-wild.)
As for the tech to do this, I already have in mind how to do it. That way we aren't devastated by some third-party software and their bugs or lack of updates. It's just html files with some Javascript thrown in to make some parts dynamic. It allows nearly anyone with very basic html knowledge to understand and edit.
The ownership would be the group of admins with their sites and games, the ones who work for this the most. That way PRs have checks and balances.
The biggest is being able to agree with the basic system of how this all runs.
Also, my wording may sound 'definitive' but it's only my inner Bard showing through. This is just one idea of many out there.
One of the best concepts is what @Sponge mentioned, where not only are various MU* sites a federation but also the players. Being able to have a hub-profile, a kind of MU* social media profile, that allowed them to keep all their MU* activity in one spot.
MU* is a medium and should be treated that way to keep the community going. We all use MU* for many different types of games, stories, themes, ect. Through that a lot of core concepts shine, stand out and need to be addressed. musoapbox is a great start.
It sounds almost like you want a distributed forum, much like Usenet from the days of yore, or fidonet, or the like. The MUD community actually has some distributed bboard stuff along those lines, but I'm not certain whether it would be better to pursue that or a separate implementation.
Given the limitations on MUSH data structures, the MUSH version of such a beast would likely have to be implemented as a separate process and connect as a mushbot.
The key idea here separating this from a centrally located mush bboard is distribution; posting a message would echo it on all participating servers and losing any one server would be no loss.
Then again, distributed hierarchical database application servers is a little too close to my dayjob >_>
Quick update: The previous Github repo has now moved to its permanent home at https://github.com/mucommunity/mucommunity. Prototyping is underway and I hope to have something worth showing off tomorrow-ish.
@purldator Glad it was a simple understanding. Not a problem.
Now, to business:
@purldator said:
The website is open source. No smoke or mirrors. Everything edited is documented and can also be reverted. Changes made are seen, issues are discussed and there's a good level of transparency, just enough.
It won't disappear if the current host suddenly disconnects. This is how I felt with WORA when someone told me it went under. The code board was indispensable but not even Wayback could archive it since a login was required to view. If the source is always on GitHub then someone else can easily take it and sync it somewhere else. Where it is hosted for public consumption really has no serious bearing.
It's all static files so it's easier to load and easier to maintain and easier with security. Especially if a CDN was involved eventually so anyone, no matter their geo-location, could readily access it. (It also helps with google pagerank; that's one key to getting proper 'exposure' out in the online-wild.)
This is all very similar to what we are working on with MUCommunity. Not only is the site open source, but we're using a platform-as-a-service provider that's deeply linked in with the source; no server administration, merged changes automatically deploy, and pull request branches get a temporary staging version of the site to preview the changes. Along with having a robust list of people with merge access, this should fully alleviate both the "take my ball and go home" factor and the "hit by bus" factor.
While I'm a big fan of static websites when able, this doesn't seem like a good fit for that to me, because we want to collect ever-changing statistical data that would be a pain to maintain in static files. Databases are good at this sort of thing and we should use them. However, as discussed in our Mandate/Charter topic, the expectation will be that all user contributions are Creative Commons-licensed. That will allow us to easily publish all of the site's data in an API/machine-readable format (both on-demand, and possibly publishing privacy-sanitized DB dumps, similar to Wikipedia).
This doesn't really necessarily address the 'federated identity' problem at all, but it is an essential component of what I want to build for MUCommunity.org to ensure that it's not something that dies with me (or my interests).
Can I be the token minority of the project? Pretty please, with sugar on top?
I dunno, whatcha got?
I have a waggish sense of humor.
@Misadventure said:
I dunno, whatcha got?
1.) I'm good with people.
2.) I totally helped to make a game once.
3.) I've been MU*ing off and on for years, although, so have most others on this site.
@Rince All of that sounds great! I agree with the licensing most of all because I've had that bite me in the butt when I didn't have something like that for my forum.
I will be crafting my own TOS and Privacy Policy for weavewordswith.me. If you want I would be willing to donate a copy to you for your endeavor if you don't have a source for these yet. You can fine-tune it for MUCommunity's needs. I research this heavily; online communities are my shtick and I love knowing what makes them tick, and what keeps them safe, sane and secure (mostly). I do my best to catch all possible loopholes. While I Am Not A Lawyer, it's a start. No TOS/PP available shows zero due diligence which is way worse than a Layman writing his own TOS to do some butt covering.
I just starred that linked repository. I'll give it a thorough read in short order!
As for the Federation Idea, no worries on that just yet. When some sites start cropping up (like yours and mine and any others) we can all regroup and see what we may all agree on to begin that second huge step.
@purldator said:
I will be crafting my own TOS and Privacy Policy for weavewordswith.me. If you want I would be willing to donate a copy to you for your endeavor if you don't have a source for these yet. You can fine-tune it for MUCommunity's needs. I research this heavily; online communities are my shtick and I love knowing what makes them tick, and what keeps them safe, sane and secure (mostly). I do my best to catch all possible loopholes. While I Am Not A Lawyer, it's a start. No TOS/PP available shows zero due diligence which is way worse than a Layman writing his own TOS to do some butt covering.
Sure, that'd be great! Feel free to just open an issue on the repo with the suggested text whenever you have it.
Update! The Slack channel, where all the ongoing discussion of this project is happening, is now self-serve. You can go here and add yourself without needing to get me your email.
/me casts Phoenix Down.
I'm an absolute moron for saying this out loud but I've long been dissatisfied with the delay and bureaucracy of getting things up on mudstats and mudconnect and am foolish enough to think I might do a better job without having tried to tackle the same problems before.
