Gothic 3 wiki

[Gorath]

Let´s assume we create a Gothic 3 wiki.

What´s the organisational structure behind a wiki? How is moderation and deleting / updating content handled? Does the structure grow wildly or do directories have to be created by the moderator? And if so which categories do you suggest?

Of course the plan must be world domination. Everything else is below our niveau. ;)

[MonGoliat]

Whats a wiki?

[Maylander]

The fans are the main driving force, but the moderators supervize everything, so all new entries/old edited posts will be reported to the mods(via email or some in-mail system), and they take a look at it and either approve or delete telling this is not good enough/needs editing.

New categories are created by mods - fans can only edit existing categories. Anyone at all can edit, but like I wrote above, moderators approve/disapprove of everything written.

This basically means that you need very active moderators who know how actively check out what is correct and what is not, and what is scientific and what is simply I'm-12-and-want-to-write-on-a-website.

As for categories, hmm, that's a tough one. Initial categores should contain factions, not only definitions but how to deal with factions in the best possible way, character development(perks, magic, etc), a main quest walkthrough with the different branches. Of course you need sidequests too, but I'd divide those either in factions or cities, probably cities as that's how they are categorized in the game. Maybe there should also be a technical directory with possible tweaks and such to get the game running as smoothly as possible, since it certainly has quite a few technical issues right now(inspired by the huge tweak thread we have now, something similar as a wiki, but more organized obviously).

Well, those are my suggestions at least. :)

Edit:
@MonGoliat:
A wiki is something similar to wikipedia.org, an encyclopedia where fans can contribute instead of just proffesional writers. So basically, you can get huge amounts of information(about Gothic 3 in this particular wiki) in very little time, but the information needs to be moderated so it doesn't get out of hand or contain false information. Basically it's a very thorough and solid FAQ, written by fans who know what they're talking about.

[Wulf]

I have reservations about using a wiki, it can easily be edited with WRONG info's by anyone which would then lead to some confusion and ever more work.

I am more favour an acrobat.pdf file for use in this requirement, they are easily downloadable, can contain graphics, can be edited, compiled, ammended, deleted, upgraded, they are widely known and accepted. Then by having a responsible person in charge of it would keep some order and credibility. It would also be a more desirable item for gamers to download the latest version at any given time.

[Maylander]

Like I said, the wiki would need active moderators to acknowledge all changes, to make sure the language is okay and the content correct.

In general I'm not a fan of pdf files, but that's an old grudge I have towards information that is downloadable when it could be opened on a simple website instead, whether it's powerpoint, acrobat reader or word.

[Danicek]

With proper moderation, a wiki is a good idea. I support it (and eventually will contribute...).

[MonGoliat]

A wiki would be very nice!
Like the ones they have on WoW and so on, right?

But Id need alot of moderators that knows what their talking about.
And have the time to work with it.

[Gorath]

How many moderators do we need? 10 ?

[Gorath]

I am more favour an acrobat.pdf file for use in this requirement, they are easily downloadable, can contain graphics, can be edited, compiled, ammended, deleted, upgraded, they are widely known and accepted. Then by having a responsible person in charge of it would keep some order and credibility. It would also be a more desirable item for gamers to download the latest version at any given time.
And who would maintain control of such a pdf? That´s a lot of work. Easily 200 hours or more in the first year.

[Gorath]

As for categories, hmm, that's a tough one. Initial categores should contain factions, not only definitions but how to deal with factions in the best possible way, character development(perks, magic, etc), a main quest walkthrough with the different branches. Of course you need sidequests too, but I'd divide those either in factions or cities, probably cities as that's how they are categorized in the game. Maybe there should also be a technical directory with possible tweaks and such to get the game running as smoothly as possible, since it certainly has quite a few technical issues right now(inspired by the huge tweak thread we have now, something similar as a wiki, but more organized obviously).


As I understand it a wiki has a tree structure. How about this:

1 Gothic 3 (leaves the option open to create more wikis for the older games)
1.1 Game Overview
1.1.1 General Gameplay
1.1.2 Story
1.1.3 The World
1.1.4 Combat
...

1.2 Technical Infos and Tweaking
1.2.1 System Requirements
1.2.2 Tweaking
1.2.2.1 Prior to installation
1.2.2.2 Graphics Driver
1.2.2.3 Options Menu
1.2.2.4 Ini Files
1.2.2.5 Tools


1.3 Guides
1.3.1 Quest
1.3.2 Combat
1.3.3 Character Development


1.4 Maps


1.5 NPCs


1.6 Downloads

[Arexen]

i like the wiki idea. :) But I agree we'd need good moderators.

[Wulf]

Yes Gorath, a lot of work, but there must always be a controller/overseer to co-ordinate the input of any group otherwise it could get chaotic if you see my point. A wiki with multi persons editing and inputting the data at random maybe wouldn't be as coherent as intended, whereas a pdf file although similar, would be different, a compilation of the same data input but only the co-ordinater edits and releases the download when complete.
The idea was only meant as another alternative, to possibly expand upon because i remember the strategy guides for Beyond Divinity were beautiful but simple and impressive... see for yourself.

http://www.locusinn.com/index.php?hsaction=10062&infoID=167&pageID=480

Thanks to 3 Larian Studios forum members (Kiya, Barnabus and Raze) and our own Myrthos.

[Gorath]

The wiki has been confirmed. Now we need at least 5 moderators.

[Arexen]

I have never used a wiki. Otherwise, I would volunteer.

[Thaurin]

A wiki builds on the idea that if you have enough active and serious contributors, that you'll always have more people adding correct information and fixing false information than people that are just there to ruin it or don't know what they're talking about. I'm of the opinion that those that don't know what they're talking about or just want to vandalize do not have the same enthusiasm to contribute than the serious contributors. So in the end you will accomplish a certain amount of trustworthy content that is worthwhile enough to be useful.

Of course, I've never been closely involved with the back-end of a wiki and how much moderation is required. There will always be situations where certain articles will have dubious or false information, but people can also tag those as doubtable as far as I know. Every change is logged and can be rolled back. Vandalizers can be banned, too.

A wiki would be a great fun way to get everyone who wants to involved and is just more interactive than a stale PDF that is simply a strategy guide. A wiki would and could contain so much more. I like the idea.

(Just check the WoW wiki, it's a great source of information.)

[Dhruin]

The work done for Beyond Divinity (and Val's Divine Divinity guide) was fantastic but it also represented a huge time investment. If I asked Myrthos if he could (or would) do it again, I think he'd have a heart attack at the mere thought of it. ;)

In practice, we simply can't reasonably construct a good guide (unless it comes out in a few years). Also a wiki grows organically, whereas a guide needs to be somewhat complete before release. This is the best way. :)

[Danicek]

A wiki builds on the idea that if you have enough active and serious contributors, that you'll always have more people adding correct information and fixing false information than people that are just there to ruin it or don't know what they're talking about. I'm of the opinion that those that don't know what they're talking about or just want to vandalize do not have the same enthusiasm to contribute than the serious contributors. So in the end you will accomplish a certain amount of trustworthy content that is worthwhile enough to be useful.

Great point and I agree. This is the way ti works (almost everytime). Less interesting wiki topics have less poeple interested in contribute but less people willing to destroy and so on. Therefore I would say we don't need many mods but it can't hurt to actually have several of them "just in case". So I would think 5 is a good number.

[JemyM]

I was thinking about writing a F.A.Q. for G3, but due to it's tremendous size and NWN2 in my hand I might have to delay that job. Once I am ready there might have been someone else who already dunnit. I might have some free time between mindflayers to assist on a wiki.

[Maylander]

I could always assist on such a wiki, I've spent quite a bit of time the last few weeks answering and re-answering the same questions, so posting it all in one place for people to read might actually be less work in the long run. :)

[Gorath]

How many directory levels does a typical wiki have? It seems the one we are about to use only has "category" and "article", which makes it two levels. The first one would be taken by the games DB.

If the navigation structure is so flat we need more than 5 moderators to keep everything under control because the articles will have a gigantic size, for example all Cape Dun quests in one place.

[Maylander]

I think that is a fairly common wiki structure, but if the structure is premade(only moderators can create new articles/categories), it shouldn't be too hard to control, especially if the moderators are notified whenever changes are made in any of the articles.

Also, the workload will most likely decrease in time, unless the wiki is expanded, as articles become more and more complete, so five should at least be able to keep it organized after a while.

[mute]

And some note about people ruining the experience...
I think the problem is lesser than it really is. Fore most you must be logged in and validated. That usually intimdate people doing too much damage. (but it happens). The focus is a game, and also in a "niche" market with a pretty "mature" following (oh my good, now i am really guessing!) :)

I would think that the efforts of ruining the experience will be rather old once the games lifecycle is over and we, the fans, playing it. (I played gothic for the first time last summer, followed by gothic 2 and used all forums hint i could find!). Its for the fans the wiki will be constructed.

But time will tell.

It looks like Maylander have both the knowledge about the game and a clear structure in his head how it should be done. So, i will not come with suggestions, since you guys already have an pretty good idea(?).

If there need be help in maintaining the material and contributing to it. I'll gladly help! I think it will be a appreciated effort, and a long lasting one. And the experience doing this will help you all when you do one for NWN 2... :)

[Maylander]

That's a good point, I don't think there are too many members in the Gothic community who would be childish enough to try and ruin a Gothic 3 wiki. There will certainly be some, especially outside the community, but it won't be as many as if we were trying to make a wiki for the average "pop title".

Also, Gorath is the one organizing this wiki as far as I know, not me, as he's the main moderator for Gothic. I will definetly help out though, with whatever is needed. :)

[Arexen]

I've already seen a Gothic 3 wiki. So far, it's well done.

[Gorath]

You forgot to post the link.

Our wiki is online. Just the layout is missing.

[Thaurin]

I assume that it's not public yet, because you didn't post a link. Same for the other supposed Gothic 3 wiki.

It would be great to start collecting all tweaks in one place and maybe add some templates for different setups.

[Gorath]

I just need to find the time to (learn to) implement the basic directory structure. Then we can start. The layout is unfinished but that doens´t matter now.

[Dez]

A gothic wiki is a great idea. Its easy to use and what is the most important, adding new info is child's play. Like if something terribly usefull pops in your mind during the lunch break, it takes only 2 min to add it there. And it never fades away like the forum posts. :)

[Gorath]

Our wiki and the style guide can be found behind this link (http://www.rpgwatch.com/wikka/HomePage).

All you need is a forum account. Have fun entering data! :)

[Arexen]

Oh come on guys. All I did was run a search in wikipedia's site. For those who are too lazy to do the same: Here's a link (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gothic_3).

EDIT: Keep in mind this is in English.

EDIT 2: Ok so this site doesnt have any tweaking or guide information. But it has a good idea of how to do the basic infos.

[Maylander]

That's not a Gothic 3 wiki, that's information about Gothic 3 on Wikipedia. Wikipedia is a wiki containing a lot, but each different article is not a wiki of its own. It's just a part of the huge wiki called Wikipedia.

[Danicek]

That's not a Gothic 3 wiki, that's information about Gothic 3 on Wikipedia. Wikipedia is a wiki containing a lot, but each different article is not a wiki of its own. It's just a part of the huge wiki called Wikipedia.

Yes, that's it...

[Thaurin]

Ah, that explains a lot. :) I'll have a look at the wiki now.

EDIT: Just so you know: the formatting guide for the wiki software can be found here (http://www.rpgwatch.com/wikka/FormattingRules). Start filling it. :)

[Gorath]

The first entry has been made. :)
Who did it? HiddenX? The log says "Unregistered", which is hopefully impossible.


The page named "FormatingRules" is more a long list of options to format the text. You can use it like a catalog to find out how to create the desired effect. Most commands are trivial.
One thing you need to remember though:
Internally wiki pages have the following naimg convention:
AxxxxxBxxxx or AxxxxxB .
If you use such a construct the wiki will create a page with that name or set a link to it if the page already exists.

[Gorath]

Regarding the page length I think if you need to scroll down more than ~5 pages we should create another menu branch to specialize the infos a bit more.

[Cm]

Could I suggest a new wiki thread be started with just the links to the site and the formating info in it and have it sticky? Any furture discussions on layout, content ext about the wiki can be handled within the wiki.

[Gorath]

Yes, I´ll open another thread.

[Thaurin]

The first entry has been made. :)
Who did it? HiddenX? The log says "Unregistered", which is hopefully impossible.

I've been entering some stuff this afternoon (most notably a start with the ini tweaks article (http://www.rpgwatch.com/wikka/IniFiles)), but it should be under 'Thaurin', so I don't know why it should list as Unregistered. Probably somebody else did it then. No, wait-- it lists the owner as Unregistered. Weird, my session must've timed out or something.

Regarding the page length I think if you need to scroll down more than ~5 pages we should create another menu branch to specialize the infos a bit more.

If I remember right from Wikipedia, it could make an internal table of contents with html anchors and everything, but I understand that this wiki software doesn't support it yet? It's possible using some workaround with <a id="name"> or something, but I haven't tried it. That way, people could click down to a section of an article.

[Arexen]

That's not a Gothic 3 wiki, that's information about Gothic 3 on Wikipedia. Wikipedia is a wiki containing a lot, but each different article is not a wiki of its own. It's just a part of the huge wiki called Wikipedia.

Ahh I understand what you guys man now. I mixed them up.

[Evil Timmy]

First, the moderation. At the moment it seems like Gorath is the only one with power there, and given the nature of Wikis, that's going to have to change. You can always revert changes, but it's easier to have a good team of mods who can stop any vandalism, attacks, or just plain stupidity and stubbornness before they get out of control. Forum moderators are a good start, but also look at people who show a good knowledge of the Wiki editing system and contribute useful information. These people care about the content and will happily defend it to their last breath, for free, and they're your best defense.

Second, the structure. The Wiki is fine for Gothic 3 as is, but when you start adding more games, you'll regret not having naming conventions and structure in place (ie there's probably more than one game that'll justify a Guides or Maps section). It's still very early on, but it's always easier to correct now rather than later.

I'd also recommend having the basic pages already laid out, so that people can just copy-and-paste existing pages and change the content as necessary. This ensures that all information is there and where it should be for each type of page. For example, imagine a generic quest page layout. It would always include important, easy-to-reference categories like starting location and NPC, effect on reputation, gold/item rewards, and type (kill, deliver, talk, escort), as well as having a textual description on how to complete the quest, with cross-references to give you as much detail as possible (if you want it). Each major type of page (quest, town, NPC, item) should have a template of this sort, to make adding content as easy as possible.

[Apostrophe]

I agree completely with the previous poster.
Some general templates would be very useful for contributors, espescially to those who have not got enough time to format the page.
For an example, I would certainly have something to add, but I'm not sure if I'm ready to wrestle with wiki codes.

The second thing is, that maybe it would be smart to add a link to rpgwatch.com to the Gothic 3 page on Wikipedia.

[Gorath]

You don´t need to wrestle with wiki codes - we have a WYSIWYG editor.

Of course it would be nice to have templates. I don´t have time to write them though. Somebody else can do it.

[Thaurin]

The second thing is, that maybe it would be smart to add a link to rpgwatch.com to the Gothic 3 page on Wikipedia.

And you could've done this yourself, too, so I did it for you now. ;)