Wiki Listing

[Manic Velocity]

This isn't far fetched right?  MxO guys know that.

Oh man... the lengths some people went to in order to "expose" us back in the day.  It's hilarious to think about.  Especially since most of the time we weren't really hiding anything.  :P

[Heironymus]

Genius, Mharz!

That's something that would be lots of fun.  But would it also be too much work for how much it benefits us?  It doesn't seem like it would require a terrible amount of effort, but I could be wrong.

well.. we could use it as part of our recruiting as well... something to the effect of telling the recruit..
"we have spys trying to infiltrate us.. they are collecting data on us as we speak but have yet to get any further than a birds eye perspective.. find what data they have and report back.. "

just a thought.. kind of like we know the report exists but until they get better data we dont mind.. but we are watching

also..
getting more detailed.. we can have individual profiles on this intel report.. kinda like personel dosiers..
Tbone
leader of the Furious Angels.. origin unknown.. current location: unknown
class: sentinel
Known facts: blah blah blah blah.. battles lead.. known victories.. blah blah blah..



then have any angels that leave the game after their profile is there still listed but put MIA

[Ragnarok]

That's something that would be lots of fun.  But would it also be too much work for how much it benefits us?

Wikis don't require much work. They use Markup language so practically anyone can make one. Also say we do something like dossiers on the captains someone would just need to make a template and the rest of them would just have to fill in their info.



Example of markup language:

[Tbone]

This just seems like duplicating what we already have. And I'm going to be frank here - often times when these ideas are thrown out and we try it, the same people who were enthusiastic about it don't actually follow through, and I end up trying to do the whole thing practically by myself.

Case in point, when we were creating the challenge for SWTOR, someone came up with the idea of a weekly roleplay newsletter whose primary purpose would be to put in secret FA messages. We were originally going to use it to release the challenge when it was ready. It was going to be a secret even from a majority of FA. The person who wanted to do it even created the first newsletter under an alias and posted it. He said he was going to be doing it once a week or once every two weeks, and do this several times before we were even ready with the challenge.

Well, it never got past that first post. There was no follow through. He didn't keep posting - didn't even create a rough draft for a second "newsletter". So we eventually had to start brainstorming other methods.

So the reality is that no one has ever convinced me that it is worth it to create an entire new website that's a mirror of this site in Wiki form. And I know wikis can be edited by all or a group, but I don't trust anyone else to get it done - not even the other staff. Another example...

We wanted to create a video showcasing each Order (which we did). All the Masters were excited about it. Adad was going to make them - I was going to do the voicework. ALL the Masters had to do was explain which clips they wanted included and the dialog they wanted to go with it. I think maybe one or two besides Adad and myself actually did this, and we had to hound some people for it. Eventually Adad and I had to do a good portion of that ourselves.

If you want another example, check out the FA Gear store. Ah, you can't. Because we're still waiting on submissions of artwork

So my first issue is, yes, most of the time when projects like these are brought up, I know I'm going to be doing a majority of the work and, therefore, it needs to be something that I personally am invested in or think will contribute.

Creating a wiki site that pretends to be made by our enemies but is secretly run by us sounds a lot like our newsletter idea that never even got off the ground. It takes a lot of time and effort to do an ongoing thing like that, and it isn't worth it.

Creating a wiki site for members that has guides, info on Orders, etc. is merely a duplication of what we already have. Take a look at the left section of our site. See the "//Menu"? That's about as simple as it gets. Click and ye shall receive. It's all there. We don't need to take members to an external wiki to sift through the EXACT same thing. It's just not efficient.

Creating a wiki site for non-members has the exact same issue - the info is already here on our site. And we don't want to reveal too much info anyway, so I imagine it will be a pretty barren wiki site.

How would we even implement it into our current site? Just add another menu link that says "wiki"? So now people have to click on "wiki" to get to our wiki, and then go through a bunch of different navigational links. Or would you rather our current links just point to the wiki. If so, why would we have them point to an external site rather than keep it here all nice and neat in the CMS?

Sorry if I'm overly pessimistic about this, but it just seems like a whole lot of work for a whole lot of nothing. I think we already have a wonderful site in place (we just won an award for our website) and have all the tools needed to be successful both in-game and out. I think, with us being so close to launch, we should focus on fine-tuning what we currently have and looking for the NECESSITIES that are still missing rather than trying to add more flare with massive projects that most likely won't see completion.

[Manic Velocity]

Here is something I've thrown together over the past two days.  I'd especially like to hear the opinions of our newer members:

http://inspireatwill.com/fa_wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page

This is just a barebones example of what could be done.  Input from everyone could make this a very effective tool.

This was my first attempt at setting up a wiki, and while it did take a little getting used to, I didn't find it difficult.  It provides a well-designed method for conveying information.  A permissions plugin could integrate with our existing phpBB authentication and groups in order to keep things like Guides and TeamSpeak information hidden from non-members.  The absolutely vital stuff can be protected for admins only.

We're already seeing a decent in-flow of new recruits, and I feel that will only continue and possibly increase after launch.  The wiki would prove helpful in providing necessary information in a format that is widely recognizable, rather than asking new folks to sift through various forum stickies.

[Lithium]

I typically do not like wikis outside of Wikipedia. I fail to see why a forum cannot work in nearly the same way as a wiki. Sure, you won't edit other peoples posts but you can still easily consolidate information into the OP. We already do this with Guides and we have done this many times in the past. I do not see the benefits of adding even more permissioning, more hacking in phpBB, and all this dumb crap for something that practically already exists in a community forum.

[Da6onet]

I'm going to echo what Tbone and Lithium are saying. I think it's too much work for a reorganization of information that already exists. As far as the RP aspect, I'll go one step further and confirm that it is never going to happen.

Now I do agree that having a content management system is a necessary for any organization these days, but as it has been stated, we already have a cms that is sufficient for our purposes. Those organizations that have say a forum, a high level menu, and a wiki do so because the amount of content is ridiculously large (i.e. EVE's forum/wiki). If/when we get that large, we'll have other structural changes going on first.

[eeth]

i think a good example of why a wiki would be useful is something like the signature code for the official TOR forums. it took me forever to find that in the forums (mostly because I didn't use the search like an intelligent human being, so on second thought it's maybe not a good example). forums are great for discussions. horrible for indexing information. really good bits of information get mixed into threads which are not titled properly and if you don't know the exact keywords that might be in the content you're looking for, then the search feature isn't all that helpful. (admittedly, it can find you exactly what you want in most cases.)

that being said, i understand where everyone is coming from with the actually getting it done sentiment. but if we have people willing to copy and paste, which isn't that painful. i could see the little example that Manic put together growing quite quickly and being quite useful.

just my 2 cents.

[Manic Velocity]

I do not see the benefits of adding even more permissioning, more hacking in phpBB, and all this dumb crap for something that practically already exists in a community forum.

This made me realize that I was attempting to fix something that may not be as broken as I think it is.  Instead it would create more work outside of duplicating what we already have.

I'll be taking the wiki down tonight.

[Broin]

You know I wouldn't mind seeing us do something for release... Something cool... You know releasing an Angels Ascend something