Wikis and Their Value for RP-Focused Games
From MUWiki
Wikis and Their Value for RP-Focused Games
Kastaprulyi of OtherSpace: New Journeys gave this presentation at FidoCon I on Sept. 8, 2006:
http://cs.elderscrolls.com/constwiki/
http://www.jointhesaga.com/muwiki/
Brody slips off the stage and hands the chatty sceptre to Kastaprulyi. "Our master of OtherSpace Wikiness will now share his thoughts on the importance of Wikis, especially for RP-based games. Mr. Jellyfish, you have the floor." Settles into a chair next to Dolfan.
Dolfan covers her nose.
Brody wafts.
Volouscheur bahs and missed her cue. Lurks by the Skittles cannon to wait for her next opportunity.
Kastaprulyi drifts over to the middle of the audience rather than to the podium.
Greenstorm rowdies for Kas.
Kastaprulyi says, "Alright folks. I might be doing some preaching here, but it won't be any of that mess about Democracy coded into the Web, or the emergence of a Hive Mind that you might hear in relation to Wikipedia. Just the facts here."
Kastaprulyi says, "I'm not quite sure why Brody asked me to give this talk, but I know it wasn't my technical skills. I can't tell you how to install a Wiki or manage its server-side settings. (Though we can get you in touch with folks who can, if you need assistance.)"
Kastaprulyi says, "But something I do have is a love of continuity. I very much want every tale to end with my suspension of disbelief fully intact. For example, I think it's fun to invent or learn an elaborate in-theme explanation for why Original Star Trek Klingons look different from Next Generation ones. Though others may not be as picky as I, any author of any popular sci-fi or fantasy series can tell you how difficult and how important is is to maintain continuity."
Kastaprulyi says, "For an established game with a large and ever-changing universe, a Wiki seems to be the right tool for this job. Some of its advantages are: a pool of content writers and editors nearly as large as your playerbase, a label-based (rather than folder-based) organization scheme, fast updating, and its attractiveness to some search engines."
Kastaprulyi says, "Some of its challanges are: encouraging all your players and admins to write and organize what they know, familiarizing people with the label-based organization scheme, and making sure all pages have a similar look-and-feel."
Kastaprulyi says, "That's about it for my introduction. First of all, who's got questions of comments about why trying to get everyone involved in setting down cannon is important (or not so important)?"
Volouscheur bounces, hand high in the air.
Davion says, "How is a wiki better than simply having your code log everything and send it out to a webpage. Being it code, it's templated and consistant, always."
Davion says, "Webpage or Database of some kind (SQL, Flatfiles, XML, etc.)"
Jon says, "Does code know what's important?"
Kastaprulyi will respond to Davion first, if that's okay, Scheur?
Volouscheur says, "That's fine. :)"
Ambrosia quietly waves out. Bed time :>
Kastaprulyi says, "Well, really, Jon, important isn't important. That's the beauty of a Wiki."
Kastaprulyi says, "If it is sufficiently well organized, you can have nearly enything on there."
Kastaprulyi says, "Now, I'm not sure what kind of information Dave is talking about here?"
Davion says, "Rp sessions, battles, etc."
Davion says, "Maps..."
Kastaprulyi nods. That's an interesting point Davion. Here on OS, it simply wouldn't be practical to log all the things characters said and did.
Kastaprulyi says, "And there would still be the issue of organizing roleplay sessions by topic and participants.""
Davion says, "In the MUDs I come from, RP sessions and Combat are pretty easy to grab, and easy to filter out the useless stuff (non PK battles, etc)"
Jon would also worry about the privacy of logging everything. But different games, different views. :)
Davion says, "Well, if you're getting player-interactin via wiki. You could implement commands to initiate an rpsessions, and deam it public, private, semi-private"
Kastaprulyi says, "That is a point, Jon. On some games it's expected and on others merely tolerated."
Davion says, "Maybe base it on the room you're in. Public areas would be posted, private (Clan halls, confessionals..) would not"
Kastaprulyi says, "I would like to see the system you propose in action, Davion"
Kastaprulyi says, "However, Wikis are already implemented now, and have built-in capabilities to allow users to thoroughly label things."
Brody isn't sure it would be generally practical here, but it's beside the point. We're talking about player-maintained Wikis.
Davion says, "But would players go to all the work to throw up all those logs. Filter out the crap. Colourize (if need be), etc."
Dolfan raises her hand.
Brody says, "Yes, actually. They would."
Brody grins.
Brody says, "And do!"
Zarquon knows they do.
Davion says, "What of the user base?"
Noltar nods and knows they do.
Brody is of the opinion that Wikis are one of those secret weapons to let players shape the world, or at least their community.
Dolfan notes there's another advantage to wikis that i think has been hinted at.
Zarquon says, "On my game, we have 203 logs up after 111 days of being open."
Jon says, "How do you maintain integrity of the wiki? How do you maintain that someone isn't misinformed, or even intentionally deceiving? Do you have editors?"
Kastaprulyi says, "The willingness to participate is a possible issue, Davion. Some areas of Wikipedia are laden with stubs. But other areas are documented in excrutiating detail."
Zarquon notes that his players also mostly crazy.
Zarquon says, "In a good way."
Noltar says, "One of the first things people started asking for when the Elendor site moved was for the log manager to be a priority. Hundreds upon hudreds of logs and players contributing, reading etc..."
Volouscheur offers Dave some duct tape.
Brody gives Scheur the duct-tape gun.
Jon says, "I apologize for being somewhat negative. I love the idea of Wikis. But I've also seen the problems that a lot of people don't expect when they decide to throw one up. :)"
Volouscheur whees!
Davion says, "What percentage of the playerbase uses the wiki?"
Volouscheur runs around duct taping people to the MUSH.
Brody says, "All newbies read it, generally. I'd say a bunch of people read it."
Dolfan nods and raises her hand again! ;)
Volouscheur says, "At a guess, I'd say that upwards of 60 percent of our playerbase do use the Wiki."
Brody says, "Posting on it...well, you can see the user list."
Kastaprulyi says, "If you'll look on Wikipedia, Jon, you'll see. Someone can change Saddam's article to have an unflattering pronunciation to his name. Five minutes later, it's been reverted. Naturally, a smaller MU Wiki would be slower to correct, but not too much."
Brody nods at Kas. "And we've had the occasional spammer, but the community edits itself pretty well."
Davion says, "Wait"
Davion says, "So instead of letting code handle this. You deal with correcting people, unifying the entries to be more like "one site", and you fight off spammers..."
Dolfan notes on here wikis have allowed various admins and players to collaborate on areas of the game. "We've been talking about posting logs but the wiki goes much farther then that. Our med system is in the process of being restructured and thanks to the wiki not only have multiple admins been able to work on documenting all the medicine and herbs and items that make it up, but players have been able to have an immediate view of these things. As a result not only can they start using it ICly immediately BUT they can also contribute ideas/corrections/etc."
Jon nods to Kastaprulyi. "Like I was saying before, though, Wikipedia has the advantage of lots of people who are incredibly passionate about the topic and about Wiki itself, including a large number who are knowledgable. There becomes a point when asking players to maintain the information becomes too much. IMHO."
Brody says, "Davion, the key to this is that the players are the ones putting their fingerprints on something. Not a coded gizmo. It builds community."
Brody nods at Dolf.
Dolfan points to Kas and notes he's not an admin but a player, so he's a good example.
Brody says, "It's work, and sometimes we get griefed, but it's theirs and they take pride in it."
Kastaprulyi nods to Davion. Your proposal to connect the game with the website is very intriguing. However, I've yet to see a computer program that can read six years of millions of logs and come up with a concise and readable summary.
Davion says, "Why don't you give them a player-blog system?"
Brody says, "The Wiki serves that purpose too, if they want."
Davion says, "This would give them that "fingerprint" as well, close off the spammers, and asshats who want to kill your site."
Brody shrugs. "We haven't had that much of a problem, Dav. We don't have the same traffic as Wikipedia."
Dolfan says, "And, not only is Kas a player and not an admin but regardless of that he's STILL the one even admins come to when they want to know where somethign may fit best. Davi, i think you're overestimating the number of asshats out there especially when compared to the whitehats ;)"
Brody says, "And fixing things is sooooo easy ;)"
Brody waves at Keller.
Noltar says, "As for connecting the mush to the website, @sql makes it very easy to do so for the aspects that make sense to do so, and leave the more arbitrary aspects up to things like a wiki."
Keller waves back to Brody, and slips quietly into a chair at the back of the room.
Jon grins. There's far more good players than asshats, but never underestimate the number of the latter.
Davion says, "So a combination of both?"
Kastaprulyi says, "Wiki is not the perfect solution, nor is it without its own issues. However, it is a workable and ready-made one that is relatively simple from a user's perspective."
Brody says, "The OS Wiki has been running for a couple of years now. I think we've had brief periods of spambots, but those are few and far between."
Dolfan grins to Jon and shrugs, "I've been at this for 10 years and if i said there's weren't asshats out there i'd be lying but honestly, for the most part i've found players to be willing and happy participatns in the community. Now, that may not be the case for other games, i can't say."
Davion nods.
Moroko says, "Is there a way to tell the Wiki to automatedly lockdown if things start going out of control until moderators can step in? Out of curiosity?"
Jon says, "Not in MediaWiki. Don't know others."
Kastaprulyi says, "It seems reasonable to me that things such as stats and maps could be connected to the website through code. But I'm here to talk about Wikis, at the moment."
Davion says, "I realize this. But I still don't see a reason to choose a wiki over a code generated site. Other than, development, planning. A general whiteboard space if you will"
Kastaprulyi says, "Your "other than" is a great reason."
Brody nods. "And it might not be what you've got in mind. But for an RP-oriented game, it's great for storing lore, canon, RP logs, player pages - the works."
Jon says, "Wikis are great for quick and easy text. It's not great for maintaining control -- but that's by design. :)"
Brody says, "It's great for developing community control."
Davion nods.
Brody says, "Not big-man control :)"
Jon says, "You can, however, restrict it to users logged in and disable new users without admin approval."
Brody says, "Yep."
Kastaprulyi says, "OtherSpace admins are planning to improve the coded medical systems here. But before they are coded, the information will all be going on the Wiki in order to allow users to check it for consistency and to add their own information,"
Brody nods. "Already started, in fact, last I heard."
Dolfan nods, "yup."
Jon nods. "We use a messageboard for that. It's great."
Adan pokes Jon. My thunder.
Dolfan says, "We have a messageboard too, but a messageboard doesn't allow me to go in, read what Promo wrote and change lines 3-5 to be more in line w/ what we've done elsewhere."
Brody chuckles.
Dolfan says, "Honestly, we had forums a LONG time before the wiki and it was in *no way* as productive or useful atleast not for us."
Adan says, "Stay tuned for: How can message-boards be productive for you. :)"
Brody grins at Adan.
Davion says, "So you think more of our userbase would use the wiki over forums?"
Davion says, "s/our/your"
Brody says, "Dav, we don't know your userbase."
Davion says, "Telnet typo :)"
Dolfan says, "Now, where HAVE we used code to automate things a bit? We have in-game news. We coded a command that when entered outputted the months news in a wiki friendly format. Oh, absolutely Davion, atleast if you're player base is similar to ours."
Moroko thinks a Wiki is easier to navigate when you're new/looking for specific information.
Brody says, "Our players hardly ever use the forums now, except to post RP journals and OOC chatter."
Kastaprulyi says, "It's worth a try, Davion, but there is no guarantee that they will like it. It requires dedicated and mature players. Hopefully you have those. :)"
Dolfan agrees 100 Moroko.
Davion says, "Ahh!"
Dolfan says, "100% too"
Kastaprulyi says, "I want to discuss the navigation and classification in Wikis, Moroko. But first let's hear if Scheur's comment has already been made."
Brody checks Scheur's Skittles gun for ammo.
Davion says, "Well, it's not really for players. My focus is on my site ATM. I'm kinda on the fense on how I should handle articles. Wiki was one of the ideas."
Zarquon says, "We use a wordpress install for in-game news, announcements, links, etc, and a forum for traditional uses. We use wordpress pages to post game docs, and I have to admit, it's not as complete and easy as I'd like it to be. But - the WP install is highly customizable. I just dislike how all wikis seem to look basically the same - and how they don't seem to incorporate a blog feature in the traditional sense of a blog, which is my preferred format for posting news."
Davion says, "I guess the technical side of wiki's is lost in this convo? Or are there techies here?"
Kastaprulyi says, "Maybe the discussion on labeling will help you make up your mind, Davion."
Volouscheur was going to note that, because the Wiki is very easy to update, it makes it very, very simple for players to add stuff that would otherwise be a one-off RP prop to the canon.
The Skittles cannon is fully loaded.
Adan says, "Don't forget where Wikis can be a huge help even if it's not /for/ the game. One place I played, Anomaly, and now Gamma One, find the Wiki for its "canon," Memory Alpha, hugely helpful as reference. It works for those playing in the major licenses mainly, but it's a big help for a touchstone of common canon info."
Volouscheur thinks that's already been noted, though. :)
Jon can answer techie questions about Wikis if needed.
Davion says, "How easy is it to integrate -into- a site, rather than be it's own standalone thing?"
Brody nods at Scheur. "I can only imagine how much lost canon for OS is out there, pre-Wiki, that we may never reclaim." Cries.
Davion says, "err, not easy, possible :P"
Zarquon says, "Okay. Why do all wikis look the same? Can they be modified to include a news feed on the main page?"
Bahamut mutters something about Luna and Earth in relation to canon. -.-
Volouscheur hands Brody the box of Kleenex.
Brody says, "It's quite possible. I don't know what all mods are available, but my Wiki at work has an RSS weather feed on it. I'm pretty sure you could."
Jon says, "Wikis are very customizable. If you're willing to dabble in PHP, you can modify whatever you like beyond what's initially customizable. Integration into a site... you can make it match your site's look, if that's what you mean."
Kastaprulyi says, "It's possible to write any HTML into any Wiki page unless you specifically block that capability."
Brody says, "Not all Wikis look the same. Into the Black has a great Wiki site, if I recall correctly."
Zarquon hrms, will consider installing one of the wordpress wiki plugins.
Bahamut says, "And, though not MU* related: http://cs.elderscrolls.com/constwiki/index.php/Main_Page"
Davion says, "Jon: Not really. I'd much rather have it -in- the site itself without using frames/iframes and such. Making it a seperate entity seems... odd."
Zarquon says, "No, but the structure, syntax, etc for almost all wikis I've seen is straight out of the box. The only difference that I saw on into the black was the color scheme."
Bahamut says, "Best Wiki design I've seen. All CS positioning and such. :>"
Jon nods to Davion. "I wouldn't say it's easy, but if you know PHP you can plug it in to your site. All it is is a set of database commands."
Davion says, "Really"
Davion scatters off to look at wikis
Davion says, "Any suggestions?"
Jon says, "And a consistent interface, but yeah. It's all open source."
Kastaprulyi is rather fond of the out-of-the-box look. But I'm sure it's completely customizable.
Brody says, "mediawiki.org is handy."
Brody says, "And free."
Jon says, "The standard is MediaWiki. wikimedia.org."
Davion says, "Ha. It's a wiki itself. Neat"
Brody nods :)
Davion says, "What about sending links from a form to lables within the wiki?"
Kastaprulyi says, "All the articles are accessible by fairly neat and clean URLs."
Davion says, "Oh. I see"
Jon says, "What do you mean? Going to specific pages within the wiki from a custom link?"
Davion says, "Nvm. I got it"
Davion says, "I tend to ask before I check, then check while waiting answers... people get annoyed by that, sorry!"
Jon grins.
Brody says, "No problem, Dav!"
Kastaprulyi says, "Would anyone care to discuss the label-based classification scheme possible with Wiki articles, and how this can be superior to hierarchal folders if implemented properly?"
Davion says, "Sure. I can't really comment, but I can learn!"
Brody waves at Luc
Kastaprulyi says, "Well, here's an example from the OS wiki. We have hundreds of articles on characters..."
Lucius says, "Hallo. Just peekin' in. :)"
Kastaprulyi says, "Now, let's say you heard about the name "Urfkgar" and nothing else. You want a alphabetical listing to look up the name."
Kastaprulyi says, "Or suppose you are looking for information on soldiers, or on people of the Zangali species. You'd want listings of those, with a minimum of extra clicking."
Kastaprulyi says, "With the Wiki classification scheme, it's possible to label the Urfkgar article in those three different ways, and to add more labels at any time."
Davion says, "What do you mean?"
Kastaprulyi says, "The wiki automatically generates lists of all articles matching a certain label."
Brody says, "Example link: http://os.jointhesaga.com/OSWiki/mediawiki-1.4.6/index.php/Category:People"
Davion says, "How do you create this "People" category?"
Kastaprulyi says, "It's automatic."
Kastaprulyi says, "All you do is label the article as being on a person."
Davion says, "...How does it get the "People" name?"
Brody says, "If you put Category:People at the bottom of an entry."
Brody says, "If you put [[Category:People]] at the bottom of an entry."
Brody says, "You can edit a page to look at how things are categorized."
Noltar says, "Which is where maintaining consistency comes in."
Brody noddles.
Kastaprulyi nods. But consistency is much easier than with folders.
Noltar says, "Right"
Davion says, "Ahh. So it's not automated. You have to lable things within a category."
Davion says, "That's not so bad."
Brody nods.
Kastaprulyi says, "You don't have to debate whether someone is better described as Soldier, Zangali, or run-of-the-mill person. He's all three, and so is in all three lists if you want him to be."
Davion nods
Jon says, "The Wiki setup allows you to do lots of things like that. Let's also say you've got a character, Urfkgar Jones. You can maintain all character entries under their full name, but put up a page under Urfkgar that redirects automatically to the full page."
Jon says, "#REDIRECT [Urfkgar Jones], and that's it. :)"
Davion says, "What?"
Kastaprulyi says, "Wikis do have a number of neat features like that. Some of them could be replicated using other programs, but Wiki is a tried-and-true method beloved by geeks and the Google web-spider."
Jon says, "So you can just plug into the search bar "Urfkgar" and it sends you to Urfkgar Jones, with a little note that says, "Redirected from Urfkgar"."
Kastaprulyi says, "The code can be learned by looking at Wikipedia pages."
Davion says, "Ohh"
Davion says, "Cool"
Brody says, "And the Google web-spider is a secret and free marketing tool!"
Kastaprulyi says, "So any final questions folks?"
Bahamut has totally neglected METAtags on those pages. o.o
Davion says, "I want to know more about this google web-spider marketing tool..."
Kastaprulyi says, "Google usually ignores metatags and looks at content anyway. Thus the benefit of having massive amounts of canon information on the web in a form that Googlebot recognizes."
Brody says, "Thanks, Kas, for your insights about Wikis. Maybe we can all talk about 'em throughout the weekend as time allows."
Jon says, "Metatags are useless in this ay and age. :)"
Davion says, "What's "Canon"?"
Brody chuckles. "Lore related to the game."
Brody says, "Luke is Darth Vader's son - canon from Star Wars."
Davion says, "Ahh"
Kastaprulyi says, "Basically, Davion, Google says that if you try to game their system, you will eventually lose. The only way to win them over is to have tons of useful information that many people want to read."
Jon says, "Gah! I was watching that tomorrow, Brody! Thanks a lot! ;)"
Brody snickers.
Brody spoils!