 October 27, 2008 - 6:23pm | Does anybody here have any experience using wiki software? I'm thinking of adding a wiki to my site and was wondering if anyone had preferences or experience with use of some of the wiki's out in the wild? Any suggestions? At the moment, I'm leaning towards WikiMedia (the wiki behind Wikipedia) as it is really easy to integrate it with my forum software and use the same username/password database but I'm open to other ideas as I can probably hack them to use the forum authentication as well. Ad Astra Per Ardua! My blog - Expanding Frontier Webmaster - The Star Frontiers Network & this site Founding Editor - The Frontier Explorer Magazine Managing Editor - The Star Frontiersman Magazine |
 October 27, 2008 - 6:26pm | That seems like a good idea. Will you use the same markup language was wikipedia? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_edit |
October 27, 2008 - 7:03pm | If I use that one (WikiMedia), I believe it will be exactly the same. It is the same software Wikipedia uses. In fact it was written for Wikipedia and then spun off. I'll skin it differently to match the look of my site but it would be the same engine underneath. Ad Astra Per Ardua! My blog - Expanding Frontier Webmaster - The Star Frontiers Network & this site Founding Editor - The Frontier Explorer Magazine Managing Editor - The Star Frontiersman Magazine |
October 27, 2008 - 7:04pm | What will the wiki contain? |
October 27, 2008 - 9:13pm | Whatever we want. I haven't really decided. I was thinking of using it at least as a resource for documents and such for the on-line games on the site. The only drawback to that is that if I use WikiMedia, as far as I can tell, I won't be able to lock down different parts of the document tree. It's designed to be all open. About the only thing that can't go on there are the core rules and original modules. As far as I know, the only ones allowed to post those are Timothy at starfrontiers.com (original versions) and Bill with his remastered versions. I've been trying to establish a dialog with the Licensing Director at WOTC (although I can't get his/her name) but so far e-mails and letters have had no response (although I only mailed the letter on Oct 10th). Ad Astra Per Ardua! My blog - Expanding Frontier Webmaster - The Star Frontiers Network & this site Founding Editor - The Frontier Explorer Magazine Managing Editor - The Star Frontiersman Magazine |
 October 28, 2008 - 6:38am | Great Idea. Since seeing some wiki projects, I always thought it would be a great way to present rules, houserules, and add-ons to games. Another option is some of the self-contained wiki files (name forgotten at this particular moment). They are good for self-contained campaign projects and the like. I would love to see the SF rule set available this way. <insert witty comment here> |
October 28, 2008 - 6:43am | Tiddly Wiki is that self-contained version that I have seen used before. <insert witty comment here> |
October 28, 2008 - 9:44am | I would love to see the SF rule set available this way. I'm in total agreement and have been asking Bill to add a wiki on this site. The Documents section is a lot like a wiki but this site is broken down by Project so you would have a wiki in Remastered, House Rules and so forth. I would absolutley love a one-stop-shop'e for AD, KH, HouseRules and so forth, something easy to reference. In fact I wish the Star Frontiersman project was setup so we could search for content in the magazine. I've been adding the TOC but it needs more work. The mag is large enough that I can't remember where a certain article was! I honeslty don't like another SF site - I like a one-stop shop'e. (Other than PbyP games) Note that sf.us is the only site that is "owned" and maintained by more than one individual and is backed up on a regular basis. A fear of mine is for someone to tear or take down what belongs to the community -- like what Corjay did. Yes it was his project but I had efforts in them I would like back to use in other projects. |
October 28, 2008 - 12:41pm | I agree that having the rules online in a wiki would be nice. I think the reason it hasn't happened yet is lack of permission to do so. You are basically putting copyrighted material up in the public domain. To do so you need permission from the copyright owners which we don't have. As I said before, it is my understanding that Bill got permission from WOTC to do his Remastered project and I know that the starfrontiers.com site has permission to post the rules in their original form. Beyond that you can't post the rules unless you are willing to risk getting slapped with a lawsuit. I know I won't do it until I have explicit permission to do so. On the other hand, a wiki containing the articles from the Star Frontiersman Magazine should be completely possible. It would just be a matter of importing the text into the wiki software. And then it would be completely searchable. Obviously, the ideal place for that would be the Star Frontiersman site itself. That is up to Bill. w00t, since you are a maintainer of this site (don't know if there is anyone else besides you and Bill at the moment) why don't you add the wiki yourself? As you said, the projects and their associate documents sections function somwhat like a wiki. At some level that works fine. The only issue I've run into is the page that allows you to manipulate the document treee is nearly impossible to use (I think I even opened a support issue on it that never went anywhere). While I understand the project idea and the possible desire to have private projects, as someone (I think it might have been Corvus or Corjay) pointed out having the content siloed into the projects doesn't always help with visibility. I don't know that a wiki helps that in any way but at least when you do a search for a topic it covers everything in the wiki, they really are designed to be siloed. I've never really used the search on this site so I don't know if it covers the projects or just the forums. I guess I should try it out  As for having another SF site, from a certain perspective, this site already is another site.  There were other perfectly fine SF sites in existence before Bill built this one. It just has a slightly different focus from previous sites. I'm not complaining. Variety is good.Ad Astra Per Ardua! My blog - Expanding Frontier Webmaster - The Star Frontiers Network & this site Founding Editor - The Frontier Explorer Magazine Managing Editor - The Star Frontiersman Magazine |
October 28, 2008 - 12:56pm | On the other hand, a wiki containing the articles from the Star Frontiersman Magazine should be completely possible. It would just be a matter of importing the text into the wiki software. And then it would be completely searchable. Obviously, the ideal place for that would be the Star Frontiersman site itself. That is up to Bill. I'm not sure where is should live either. It has it's own project AND it's own site. The site does not have the Document/wiki functionality that this site does. This site is built on Drupal and I believe there is a module that searches PDF's attached to a node. Also, Bill's intentions for the future of the Frontiersman are not clear. w00t, since you are a maintainer of this site (don't know if there is anyone else besides you and Bill at the moment) why don't you add the wiki yourself? As you said, the projects and their associate documents sections function somwhat like a wiki. At some level that works fine. The only issue I've run into is the page that allows you to manipulate the document treee is nearly impossible to use (I think I even opened a support issue on it that never went anywhere).
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 October 28, 2008 - 2:32pm | There's already a Star Frontiers wiki: http://starfrontiers.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page Here's all the current pages: http://starfrontiers.wikia.com/wiki/Special:Allpages View my profile for a list of articles I have written, am writing, will write. "It's yo' mama!" —Wicket W. Warrick, Star Wars Ep. VI: Return of the Jedi "That guy's wise." —Logray, Star Wars Ep.VI: Return of the Jedi Do You Wanna Date My Avatar? - Felicia Day (The Guild) |
October 28, 2008 - 2:49pm | There's already a Star Frontiers wiki: http://starfrontiers.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page Here's all the current pages: http://starfrontiers.wikia.com/wiki/Special:Allpages That appears to be a copy of this site. It's difficult to navigate as well. |
 October 28, 2008 - 2:56pm | That appears to be a copy of this site. It's difficult to navigate as well. It's a wiki. You can change it. If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe. -- Carl Sagan |
October 28, 2008 - 4:14pm | That appears to be a copy of this site. It's difficult to navigate as well. It's a wiki. You can change it. I'm not sure if I can change the layout. It also states "This wiki is currently inactive." I understand the idea behind the wiki but not sure if wikia.com is the appropriate place. We could use the .info site for a wiki, character, spaceship and equipment repository. Keep it seperate from the development site. I think we all agree their needs to be a "place" for these types of items...just not sure of the best place. Bill created an equipment repository on his laptop that would be very sweet if it was online and tied to the Character sheets. |
 October 28, 2008 - 6:13pm | If you're still hunting around for wiki sites, I've had good results with pbwiki. Plus, it's WYSIWYG. "You're everything that's base in humanity," Cochrane continued. "Drawing up strict, senseless rules for the sole reason of putting you at the top and excluding anyone you say doesn't belong or fit in, for no other reason than just because you say so." —Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stephens, Federation |
 November 23, 2008 - 11:26pm | wait - hold on - the only site that has official permission from TSR->WOTC->HASBRO to post the core rules in an online readable fashion is starfrontiers.com and starfrontiers.org. I don't have that permission, only permission to put it in pdf format for distribution on this site. You might want to contact the kind folks at these two other sites and see what permissions they have. That is the reason I've not done a wiki with all the rules summarized. That's the only reason, as I'd have loved to have that available. In fact, the d20 System SRD pages are fantastic for such things... I always looked at those and thought how cool it would be to do the same thing for Star Frontiers. Sadly, I just don't have permission and the guys at .com and .org DO have it. 3. We wear sungoggles during the day. Not because the sun affects our
vision, but when you're cool like us the sun shines all the time. |
November 24, 2008 - 9:33am | Welcome back Bill! Actually only the .com site has permission to post the rules in their original form. That's why Art only has the forums on the .org site. I was referring to you having permission to post your remastered version. Ad Astra Per Ardua! My blog - Expanding Frontier Webmaster - The Star Frontiers Network & this site Founding Editor - The Frontier Explorer Magazine Managing Editor - The Star Frontiersman Magazine |
November 24, 2008 - 3:55pm | Welcome back Bill! I don't know really. The permission I received was simply "continue doing what you're currently doing until you hear otherwise"... so maybe I could get away with it. Who knows l lolActually only the .com site has permission to post the rules in their original form. That's why Art only has the forums on the .org site. I was referring to you having permission to post your remastered version. 3. We wear sungoggles during the day. Not because the sun affects our
vision, but when you're cool like us the sun shines all the time. |
November 24, 2008 - 4:07pm | That's basically the same permission the .com site has. "You can post them for now but we may tell you to stop later." Ad Astra Per Ardua! My blog - Expanding Frontier Webmaster - The Star Frontiers Network & this site Founding Editor - The Frontier Explorer Magazine Managing Editor - The Star Frontiersman Magazine |
