Traveller Wikis?

[Malenfant]

I posted a similar question on the Spica board, but I thought I'd ask here too.

Has anyone tried to develop a wiki for Traveller-related projects?

AFAIK, a wiki is like a website that anyone can edit or add information to. Wikipedia is an obvious example, and rpgnet is starting to use these too. Here's a summary of what a wiki is and how it works, from the wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiki

Anyone had experience of these? I must admit I'm not too sure how they're supposed to work, but it sounds like a good way to do big projects that have lots of contributors (like, say, a new sector...).

 

[The Hinterworlds Rambler]

I have only just started research into these. At a first glance, it shows promise, as well as being tailor -made for projects like this.

 

[Malenfant]

Yeah... what got me wondering was that one of the folks on rpgnet is making a repository for hard-sf worlds (see http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?t=197568 ), which of course got me thinking "hey, couldn't we make a sector like this?"

Seems an interesting approach anyway...

 

[clementk]

A wiki could be very useful for group development such as Spica. The main hurdle I'm running into is a place / system to put one on but I've not *really* looked into them.

There do seem to be several easy to set up ones, esp. for *NIX. You wouldn't need anything fancy looking or costly.

 

[BeRKA]

What!

A thread about Wiki without this link?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classic_Traveller

 

[Fritz_Brown]

Heh, that's almost what I have thought these boards were.... Somebody asks a question, with answers from a few, then others come and correct those answers, then someone corrects the correcters, and after a while the thread settles out or wanders off to other subjects.....

 

[clementk]

Originally posted by BeRKA:
What!

A thread about Wiki without this

A more complete wikipedia article is this related one about the Traveller roleplaying game. (edit: CotI doesn't like using ( ) within UBB code so search for or click in that article on the link for Traveller (role-playing game))

Originally posted by Fritz88:
Heh, that's almost what I have thought these boards were.... Somebody asks a question, with answers from a few, then others come and correct those answers, then someone corrects the correcters, and after a while the thread settles out or wanders off to other subjects.....

Different concept. Forums work well for threaded discussion but aren't made for collaborative articles, which is where a wiki comes in. With a wiki the corrections aren't the next three pages over in the middle of a flame war, they're folded directly into the article itself.

 

[BeRKA]

Originally posted by Casey:
A more complete wikipedia article

That was exactly the one I first tried to link to, but I noticed the same problem with linking to that page, so I linked to Classic Traveller instead.

 

[clementk]

Originally posted by BeRKA:
]That was exactly the one I first tried to link to, but I noticed the same problem with linking to that page, so I linked to Classic Traveller instead.

Ah. I need to tinker with my UBB/Html settings and see how much leeway is possible. UBB is the default here IIRC.

(update: nevermind, looks like only UBB's enabled here)

 

[theSea]

now there's a great idea

 

[Fritz_Brown]

Originally posted by Casey:
With a wiki the corrections aren't the next three pages over in the middle of a flame war, they're folded directly into the article itself.

Yeah, but that makes it so much more interesting....

Aren't the Odd Jobbs entries in the Moot a wiki? Other people can edit them once they are up.

 

[clementk]

Originally posted by Fritz88:
Yeah, but that makes it so much more interesting....

Aren't the Odd Jobbs entries in the Moot a wiki? Other people can edit them once they are up.

If CotI wasn't available for Spica I'd suggest a community blog as a release valve.

That and the Imperial Encyclopedia I think, in theory. It's been months since I've looked at them and the IE was broken before then and was missing entries.

 

[Scarecrow]

We're looking into using wiki's as part of our project management in work. I've never come across the concept before but the first thing that struck me was how open to abuse this idea is. What's to stop some little shit from replacing the hours of collaborative hard work with some monronic message about our parentage?
Or if two members have a dispute over a point and keep editing each other's posts?
Am I missing something?

On the other hand the idea of fleshing out a sector sounds like great fun. I know this has already been done in the TML landgrab but that doesn't seem to have been updated much for a few years.

Crow

 

[Jeff M. Hopper]

Originally posted by Scarecrow:
I've never come across the concept before but the first thing that struck me was how open to abuse this idea is. What's to stop some little shit from replacing the hours of collaborative hard work with some monronic message about our parentage?
Or if two members have a dispute over a point and keep editing each other's posts?
Am I missing something?

Nope, you're not missing anything. With the way a wiki is set up, it is really easy for someone to sabotage your hard work. I'd rather just put forth my ideas and let use them or not as they wish instead of letting the idea get diluted by multiple edits from people.

 

[Fritz_Brown]

Originally posted by Scarecrow:
I've never come across the concept before but the first thing that struck me was how open to abuse this idea is. What's to stop some little shit from replacing the hours of collaborative hard work with some monronic message about our parentage?

Actually, scarecrow, the LA Times just tried this with its editorial page, and it got shut down in (IIRC) 24 hours. The editorial that they opened to this was evidently turned into a jumble of vulgar/⌧ographic messages. A political blog that I read regularly had to turn off comments as well, because they were attracting nasty trolls.

Makes me really appreciate the community here....

 

[Malenfant]

You can actually control access and editing of the wiki. Frankly, yes, it's a danger, but things like the Wikipedia have gone on for quite a while without any rampant soiling of comments happening. I believe this is a viable and useful technology.

As for the original Encyclopedia Galactica Wiki, there's now a planet up there. (remove the url= below, it seems the forum software here doesn't like brackets in http code)

url=http://wiki.rpg.net/index.php/Encyclopedia_Galactica:Ideru_%28Planet%29

It really would be a perfect way to get a sector done. I think we could probably just use the rpgnet wiki for the Spica project if we wanted to (Traveller is after all a roleplaying game, and that's what rpgnet set that wiki up for...).

 

[clementk]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiki#Controlling_changes
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wiki&action=history
(the later for a list of edits to that article)

Good admins who know what they're doing are key. Also reverts/change log/entry version compares, registered users, ip/username bans for example.

Sounds like the above example turned the wiki on with no protection and then had way too much traffic and not enough watching.

I think what's in mind is a collaborative group effort with multiple articles needed. So you'd already have a common interest and hopefully some sort of group lead and way to handle disagreements. (I'd suggest a forum like CotI or a community blog along with emails/PM to handle that)

 

[Fritz_Brown]

Controlling access would be key - the LA Times experiment was wide open to their readership (and anybody who uses bugmenot).

But, yeah, it would be kinda cool.