Problems Establishing a Scenario Design Wiki
From AgeofWiki
In order for us to successfully establish a working scenario design wiki, steps must be taken to attract editors to the site, and once a commitment has been secured, further effort is necessary to train new editors in the wiki syntax and software. This is by no means a small task.
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Attracting New Editors
In order to attract new editors to Age of Wiki, steps must be taken from the beginning of the AoE3 Scenario Design community to ensure that integration goes smoothly.
Moderator-Level Tactics
The most important task should be to secure moderator and administrative support in the scenario design forum. Without this, all other options for expanding the wiki are fruitless. With moderator support, we can enforce a system of encouraging wiki use. Primarily, this means closing threads that are duplicates of wiki pages, and encouraging users posting threads (especially questions and project announcements) to create a wiki page to cover their topic. Rules could even be created to encourage wiki use, such as a prohibition against posting questions or announcing new projects for which no wiki page exists.
Administrative Tactics
On an administrative level, there are also steps that can be taken. Obviously, exposure is key. Newsposts regarding wiki developments should be as frequent as possible. A suggestion: A system of each week selecting an article from the wiki that is noteworthy and mentioning it in the newspost. This should combine with traditional links to the wiki from aoe3h. Beyond this, greater measures are also possible. It is, for example, totally possible to not have a forum for scenario design at all on AOE3H – the forums serve no purpose that the wiki cannot duplicate. But this is a somewhat radical suggestion, and a better alternative exists: Announce the wiki first, and then proceed to open the doors of the scenario design forum a period of time later, ranging from a week to several months. This will help ensure community participation in the wiki becomes common before the design forums are opened.
The greatest problem with attracting new editors will be convincing them to abandon their old practices at previous design forums. This is why I suggest dedicating a wiki to AoE3 only – the most natural time to adapt to a new way of doing things will be during a period of transition to a new heaven. If a concentrated effort is made to educate the community about the benefits of the wiki, and if this education is followed up with policy, success is likely.
Securing Support
After securing the support of the heaven itself for this project, the next step will be securing the support of highly noticeable and influential members of the community, those who will naturally take a leadership role in the coming months. For this reason, I suggest approaching the heads of large scenario design teams and asking that they commit their teams to the project. This is a logical step, because the leaders of design teams naturally have a great deal of pull with the community. A program of incentives, offering distinctions to these people, will enhance success. Alternatively, a program of punishing noncompliant design teams – refusing to let them promote their teams in the forums – could also be effective. Of course, both methods could also be combined.
The most effective way to entice influential and respected designers into contributing to the wiki is to offer a compelling reward. And so we must ask, what do we possess that is of value? The answer is clear: recognition and fame. People love having responsibility. It would be a simple matter to approach a large number of influential designers and offer them the responsibility of maintaining a particular section of the wiki. This would compel them to educate themselves in the use of the wiki software, and they would soon be zealous supporters of our cause – attempting to get other scenario designers to help with the encyclopedia.
Additional Support
Once the steps listed above have been taken, the remaining task is to create an environment in which the majority of those with knowledge of scenario design wish to help with the wiki project. Again, a program of incentives, of giving recognition in some form to excellent editors, would be ideal. HeavenGames possesses several resources in this area – newsposts, custom titles, etc. Any sort of special recognition would do.
Here's a proposal: We need someone (Elpea would be acceptable) to post a thread at AoE3H, preferrably even before the game is released, requesting committed volunteers to manage sections of the wiki. This is a good way to start building a base of support, by getting a group of users very committed to the task, and highly educated in the wiki software.
Conclusion
In summary, the ideal state which we must labor to achieve is one where designers are a) aware of the existence of the wiki, b) encouraged to edit the wiki, and c) informed about the wiki software and the benefits of it vis-à-vis a regular forum. For this to be concluded successfully, support from the administration is desirable at as many levels as possible.
Site Layout
Let's be honest. The traditional wiki layout is kind of getting boring - it's exactly the same on each of a dozen different sites. If time permits, I suggest improving the layout to be more original (the fourth link below is a great example of this). But even if the defaults of MediaWiki are abided by, some interesting tricks can be pulled off. I've identified five wikis that have a fairly good layout scheme. We should mirror our efforts on these projects.
- [1] (http://www.hrwiki.org/index.php/Main_Page) Nice use of boxes with an attractive, yet subtle background image.
- [2] (http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Main_Page) Another nice table-based wiki, although a bit bloated in appearance
- [3] (http://cunnan.sca.org.au/wiki/Main_Page) A neat and cleanly organized layout that gives information to new users easily
- [4] (http://www.dkosopedia.com/index.php/Main_Page) A modified version of the MediaWiki layout that is original in design, instead of being repetitive.
- [5] (http://en.hiddenfrontier.com/index.php/Main_Page) A slight modification of the traditional layout that looks much better.
