Wikis for All Games

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Acient J -> Wikis for All Games (7/5/2010 12:03:01)
I suggest that all the games use wikis instead of forum-based encyclopedias. Right now, the only games that have official wikis are EpicDuel and AdventureQuest Worlds. I find these wikis much easier to navigate simply because the forum encyclopedias open up so many new tabs/windows that it becomes hard to keep track of things. Wikis are great because pages are grouped into categories, eliminating the need for A - Z guides; the pages can be edited by any contributor, eliminating the need for Info Submission; and if Wikidot is used for the remaining three games (I count WarpForce and AdventureQuest as one game), players will not have to create multiple wiki accounts: rather, one account could be used for all the wikis except the EpicDuel wiki.

Tris -> RE: Wikis for All Games (7/5/2010 12:16:14)
Hey Acient J, Wikidot is a very good source to be AE's Official Wiki. But as you can see, Adventure Quest, DragonFable and MechQuest has been around for a while and eventually a forum encyclopedia was made. I understand why you would want AQ, DF, and MQ to have their own wiki instead of an Encyclopedia in the forums because it is rather hard to go around with so many tabs open, but transferring all of info already stored there for years would require much work and time from players who would volunteer to make one or for those who makes the Wiki. Generally, I would love that idea, but with all those info stored in their for years, moving ALL those info into one Wiki is not a very easy task, so I think the Forum Encyclopedia of said game is good enough as a normal wiki, despite all the tabs/windows you have to open, and etc.

Everest -> RE: Wikis for All Games (7/5/2010 12:35:19)
Not to mention, an openly available Wiki has substantial security issues. Allowing anyone to edit any entry enables anyone to also delete the contents of the entry. For a game like AQW, this might not be a hugely important issue (though it has been a problem before) but for games like AdventureQuest and WarpForce, often the information posted in Info Submission comes directly from the staff and is not accessible by players. In other words, if someone deleted entries for an AQ Wiki, the staff would have to rebuild it ourselves, which would be very time-consuming, where the system would offer very little benefit. I don't suppose using the available indices solves the alphabetical ordering of the Encyclopedias as they currently exist? Could you explain further what you would rather be available for ordering the Encyclopedias?

Acient J -> RE: Wikis for All Games (7/5/2010 12:39:18)
@Ashluv: I understand this, but I also feel that many players would be willing to put in that kind of effort, especially the ones that have been busy maintaining the forum encyclopedias. Also, for the people who do this, wiki markup language is much simpler than BBCode when it comes to linking to other entries. With the forum encyclopedias, the one making the entry must write "[link=URL of page]Name of Page[/link]," whereas with a wiki, all they would have to do is write "[[Name of Page]]." Finding the URLs for these pages in the forums can also be hard or time-consuming, especially in writing an A - Z guide. With a wiki, you wouldn't even need to find the URL. ~~EDIT: Everest's post was not there when I made this; will respond after lunch.~~ @Everest: As far as such information goes, back-up copies could always be created for safekeeping. As for the alphabetical ordering--sorry, but I'm not sure what you're asking.

Sir Gnome -> RE: Wikis for All Games (7/5/2010 13:17:32)
What I beleive Everest means is that the existing encyclopaedias have indices that group things into categories, offering an alternative to searching the A-Z forum list; a good example of this would be this thread, where, after the first post, AQ weapons are listed by level and weapon type for each element. Hopefully, this would eliminate the "Wikis are great because pages are grouped into categories, eliminating the need for A - Z guides" part. As for info submissions, having that extra level of security for boards that would be very difficult to rebuild makes sense. The games that don't need that, for example MQ, don't have info submission boards, and so can already be added to by any forum member. The advantage of having things forum-side is that anyone can add information, but they can only delete their own information, unlike with a Wiki where registered users could go around deleting vast quantities of data.

etching -> RE: Wikis for All Games (7/5/2010 14:14:09)
>Not to mention, an openly available Wiki has substantial security issues. Allowing anyone to edit any entry enables anyone to also delete the contents of the entry. For a game like AQW, this might not be a hugely important issue (though it has been a problem before) but for games like AdventureQuest and WarpForce, often the information posted in Info Submission comes directly from the staff and is not accessible by players. That's part of the reason I quit playing AQW. I couldn't trust the accuracy of the pedia if anybody can change entries or post inaccurate info, and more importantly, without the info submission posts, it became extremely difficult to track changes made to the pedia. Sure, there's a history listing, but it lists every itty bitty change, like formatting or spelling changes, etc...

Baker -> RE: Wikis for All Games (7/5/2010 14:21:02)
Deletion of information isn't a huge issue with wikis, because it's easy to see what a given person changed and then revert their changes if they're vandalism. It saves each revision separately, so nothing is lost. That said, a wiki is always open to vandalism, and there'd probably need to be people on hand to watch out for and correct vandalism. Despite that, I'm against the idea of converting all the encyclopedias to wikis. First, I like having the 'pedias all attached to the forums and hate having to go to other sites to do AE things. I also don't see any problems with the current system. You don't have to open any more windows or tabs in the encyclopedias because it's so easy to find what you want that it's unlikely you'll have to follow links from other pages (even if you do, I actually like being forced to go back where I started or I get off track). Additionally, the search function, the various indices, and the different ways to sort entries makes it easy to find entries. I don't find the wiki any easier to use in that regard. Finally, since new things enter the games only once a week, it's not like there are hundreds of edits to be made all the time. It's quite manageable through Info. Submission (or at least I assume so -- maybe the AKs would disagree), and you don't run the risk of vandalism and entries that have to be fixed up or entirely replaced. I say "if it ain't broke, don't fix it," especially when the change would take tons of time and effort like Ashluv brought up.

Nightly -> RE: Wikis for All Games (7/5/2010 15:58:22)
As a Mod for AQW's Wiki, Bballman is correct in saying that it is VERY easy to revert the pages back to what is needed. This can be done by any member of the site so it makes it a lot easier for things to get done. The vandalism so far hasn't been that noticeable, as I said above, any member can alter that vandalism so there isn't need for special members out there. I'm also against putting the encyclopedia's into the Wiki's because not only do they recieve very little attention, no one seems to know where they are. Should you happen to visit the Q&A section for the AQW area, then you'll notice a lot of those questions are answered with going to the Wiki, and pulling one link out of it. I believe the reason why people can't figure it out is more due to their not knowing where to go rather than being lazy. Furthermore, there is and always will be duplicate Wiki's. The AQW Wiki has many duplicates and those duplicates have information that our Wiki does not have because there is hacked information on their site which does not get cleared away because only a few people can do that. Furthermore, people will reference those other Wiki's more than ours because they've most likely heard it through a friend rather than the forums. If there was an on-forum encyclopedia like what there is for the other games, then there are no discrepancies between what the real information is that is AE-Sanctioned, than the information that may be correct but is not AE-Sanctioned.

He Who Lurks -> RE: Wikis for All Games (7/5/2010 18:24:06)
Hello, I see that you wish for all, if not most encyclopedia entries to be converted to wiki's. In my experience while searching the AQW wiki, I actually founded it to be a bit troubling as the pages were in many, many categories and I couldn't find what I wanted quickly and without ease. I believe that these wiki's would instead increase the amount of time it takes to search instead of minimizing it. But quite frankly, I'm comparing AQ's encyclopedia rather than AQW's encyclopedia, and from what I seen AQW has many categories which (IMO) are a tad time-taking.Also, as I have read above the benefits of a wiki do not exceed dangers of one.

Acient J -> RE: Wikis for All Games (7/5/2010 20:30:52)
You have all made very reasonable arguments, and I now see that it would not be beneficial nor easy to convert the encyclopedias into wikis. As a matter of fact, the only thing left for me to suggest would be to change the AQW Wiki into a forum encyclopedia. However, as that's not likely to happen, this thread can now be locked. Thank you all for your time. Clock Locked due to request. ~Leumas Dragonsword

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