Looking for...
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Hey folks,
We're looking to fill a 'position' of wiki admin.
There are some plans about what's needed for this but the gist of it is we want an experienced person who can help organize content so it's easier to add and categorize, and who can make it look decent
This isn't expected to be a high intensity endeavor that requires too large a time investment after the original setup but... this is MSB, I suppose, so who knows. It will be pretty hands off from our end so you won't be micromanaged although ideally you should have enough time to complete the project.
If you're interested please drop me and @Ganymede a private message giving us a sense of your experience with wikis and if you have any ideas of your own you'd like to include.
Thanks!
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Are you looking for Mediawiki or Wikidot?
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@roz said in Looking for...:
Are you looking for Mediawiki or Wikidot?
Although for now I have a mediawiki set up the person who signs up for this can pick the platform (as long as it's not a fringe undocumented monstrosity). I will install whatever I'm asked, plus any plugins needed.
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Ugh, please stick with mediawiki, not wikidot. Wikidot is set up really weirdly and not very flexible; its template handling is awful. Last I saw you have to do a work-around even to have conditional items in your template -- unless it's changed recently, it won't innately let you have a default for if a variable isn't filled in, or let you not show things if they aren't there.
Wikia (or I guess it's Fandom now...) isn't ideal either, but it's a better free wiki in my experience. It at least has most of what you'd want to use implemented....
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...so what exactly is this meant to be a wiki OF, anyway? What do we intend to contain in it? I'm half-considering volunteering, but is this just the 'we need a replacement for the open games thread' thing, or is it meant to be more? What kind of content will need to be organized? What do we want users to get out of it?
I should probably go sleep instead of making posts. But it really is kind of hard to know from this whether it's something I'd want to offer to do or not.
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Please no wiki of people. That went way off the rails in the last iteration, into grossness.
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@mietze Agreed on the 'commentary on people' part. I do think this would be a great way for people to voluntarily list themselves and make playlists similar to the 'shout in the dark' ones where things can cross-reference link between games and players, though. Again... if people are posting their own info, not someone else's.
Oh fucking well.
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@surreality It might be nice to have a list of past and present and future games, with links to people that played on/are playing on those games (voluntarily added, of course). With more room for information and elaboration than a simple thread. An explanation of what the game was, etc.
So long as we're careful not to have a forum-via-wiki style discussion develop.
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@ninjakitten said in Looking for...:
...so what exactly is this meant to be a wiki OF, anyway? What do we intend to contain in it? I'm half-considering volunteering, but is this just the 'we need a replacement for the open games thread' thing, or is it meant to be more? What kind of content will need to be organized? What do we want users to get out of it?
The general answer to that question is "everything forums don't do very well". MSB itself is pretty good for conversation but not for organizing information, categorizing it, searching for it (a task not made easier by nodebb's search function), etc.
So look at game ads - they're a bit of a pain since people go off topic - and I don't just mean by being negative about the advertised games - and there isn't any way to break them down; you can't look at 'all Wheel of Darkness' games in the works, or conveniently flip one from being under development to open beta or whatever. That would be a pretty good start, probably.
People's playlists are one my favorite threads on this entire site as well since they serve continuity and provide a sense of community, which are what MSB is specifically there for but similarly it'd be great if we can let users find each other easier - which would of course be on a volunter-only basis.
So basically the way I envision the wiki is a natural continuation of the forum. We'd enforce the constructive rules very strictly - it's no place to badmouth people we don't like or say negative things about any MU* out there, no matter if they feel justified. It'd be a depository of information although we can provide links pointing to MSB threads in their templates for visitors who're looking for more.
As to what else we can do with a wiki when we're no longer bound by the natural constraints of a single game? I dunno, you tell me (generic 'you', not @ninjakitten specifically).
But the first step in having any of it done is for a skilled person with some time in their hands to volunteer.
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Okay -- some of these, I remember being discussed before (quite a while ago, actually) and still like, but one thing that definitely needs considering is how to make the playlists just one's own info, keeping in mind that virtually nothing gets erased from a wiki. If Bob decides to add 'Idiot at Somewhere' to Fred's list, it'll be in the history forever even if Fred removes it.
It might be worth considering using a CMS (like joomla) instead -- something with finer permissions control, that could theoretically lock a certain page to be editable only by its author (and site admins).
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I agree, MU* (and player if folks are uploading their OWN profiles) pages should only be editable by their creators, or people they select. There's just too much opportunity for trolling, and in my direct experience, a subset of MUers will happily take to non-MU platforms to keep dragging on games and folks upon which they're fixated.
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@paris said in Looking for...:
pages should only be editable by their creators, or people they select
That's well and good until someone decides to troll Harvey by creating a wiki page for Harvey.
The only solution for this is strict moderation, which is a very not-MSB stance. I really don't see how this is going to work.
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@faraday said in Looking for...:
@paris said in Looking for...:
pages should only be editable by their creators, or people they select
That's well and good until someone decides to troll Harvey by creating a wiki page for Harvey.
The only solution for this is strict moderation, which is a very not-MSB stance. I really don't see how this is going to work.
The philosophy behind wikis is to let things be universally editable but easily reversible.
Having said that, the person who volunteers to do the actual work would get to set a lot of its internal logic. We all know all the ways things can go wrong, and many approaches are going to be mutually exclusive or negatively impact each other, so I'd be happy to consider whatever we come up with.
Now is there a volunteer?
- He who takes offense when not intended is a fool. He who takes offense when intended is a greater fool.
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@arkandel said in Looking for...:
universally editable but easily reversible.
Yes, and they're predicated on the idea that there are moderators/editors doing said reversals. Anyway - as you say, it's up to whoever volunteers.
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@arkandel I'm willing/able to do it. Can't start for about 2 weeks, though; there's another project I'm working with that gets priority and is already a bit behind.
My logic/suggestion:
- Create playlists with some basic templates on user pages.
- Only the user should edit their own page/list what they want to list on it. No color commentary, no peanut gallery; self-maintained lists only, with no praise/blame/gushing/griping.
- User name should be the same as MSB name.
- Game listings for games long lost to history can be created by anyone but should remain neutral in stance; existing games should be added by their owner/someone on staff there/whatever. Just what it was, where it was, when it was for defunct games, just what it is and where it is and how long it's been there for current ones, with any app notes or restrictions or what-have-you. KISS principle applies. It's super easy to add a 'add review' section to this for commentary/call-and-response if/as needed; the same goes for a 'looking for person from here!' section. Info from playlists can dynamically be added to list characters from that game and link to the player/user page for people to connect.
Strongly suggest keeping it that simple, and that's pretty dirt simple. Temporary or permanent write/create/edit blocks can be used if people can't behave like mature adults.
ETA: Strongly suggest no image uploads. They're not really necessary here for basic data foo, and they eat server space like crazy when they pile up.
Oh fucking well.
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@surreality said in Looking for...:
@arkandel I'm willing/able to do it. Can't start for about 2 weeks, though; there's another project I'm working with that gets priority and is already a bit behind.
I'm in no rush. We've done without a wiki for years so I figure it can wait for a couple of weeks. It's more important to me that whoever begins it finishes the project, so we don't have to do a lot of cleanup or waste work.
If no one wants the job by then it's yours.
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@faraday said in Looking for...:
That's well and good until someone decides to troll Harvey by creating a wiki page for Harvey.
Look, that's just what phouka do, okay?
