GameDev Wiki

Sounds very cool to me, Wiki''s are pretty successful and it would make gamedev modern (and they''d at once finally have a reason to switch to php )

We briefly raised the idea about one year ago, it didn't fly far.

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“Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the first place. Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you are, by definition, not smart enough to debug it.” — Brian W. Kernighan (C programming language co-inventor)

[edited by - Fruny on January 12, 2004 5:10:19 PM]

This would be a bad idea. Unless you have a lot of moderators working 24/7 with this Wiki (moderators that can ban the use, or edit, of the Wiki) then you will get a lot of trash. This is GameDev.net.

If there are moderators, more then there are in the forum, and people can be banned from editing, then yes - I am for this Wiki, a wonderful idea.

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Original post by Boops
Sounds very cool to me, Wiki''s are pretty successful and it would make gamedev modern (and they''d at once finally have a reason to switch to php )

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There are lots of wikis that run under ASP.

I agree with Aftermath.

if gamedev.net had a Wiki, it would end up being 1 good article combined with 1000 pictures of goats.

It would be like wack-a-mole!

Hit the good article, avoid the goats!

~~~~~
"One Reality is worth one thousand dreams"
Download and play Slime King I.

What about a combination wiki and forum?

Instead of threads, you have wiki topics, following the normal rule of WikiFormat tags, and automatic cross-linking. Each wiki topic has its main text, and an attached list of comments, just like a normal forum thread. Most users can only post replies as normal comments, but power users (staff, moderators, and trusted users) can edit the main topic text.

When a question is posted into the wiki, the question text will be put in the main wiki text. Someone will hopefully answer it, either by posting a comment reply, or (if they're a power user) by editing the main wiki text.
If someone who isn't a power user posts a good reply, then hopefully a power user will eventually come along, delete/hide the good reply, and move/copy it into the main wiki text (editing and integrating as necessary).

Power users (in fact, any user) would be encouraged to create indexing and cross referencing topics, if they notice a suitable set of topics to index.

A large difficulty is that it needs more maintanance (moving good replies into the main wiki text, creating cross reference/index pages, and so on).

I'm not sure that it would need much more moderation than the existing forum approach though.

John B

[edited by - JohnBSmall on January 12, 2004 5:51:54 PM]

Right now it''s fully available to any member of the community to go to the less-travelled forums to find good threads then back to other topics to post links. It just doesn''t happen. I don''t see how making it only slightly easier will spur much more interest in such a thing.

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Original post by Run_The_Shadows
Right now it's fully available to any member of the community to go to the less-travelled forums to find good threads then back to other topics to post links. It just doesn't happen. I don't see how making it only slightly easier will spur much more interest in such a thing.

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Well, perhaps because with a wiki, the only way you can create a new topic is to link to it.

Edit: And because with a wiki, things aren't time sensitive. Old topics aren't any harder to find or see than new topics, so if the link hierarchy is reasonably easy to understand, then you're more likely to find whatever has already been written about a topic. With the forum, you have to use the search, and although it looks easy, it can sometimes be difficult to choose key words which will get you the results you're really looking for.

John B

[edited by - JohnBSmall on January 12, 2004 6:11:03 PM]

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Original post by JohnBSmall

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Original post by Run_The_Shadows
Right now it''s fully available to any member of the community to go to the less-travelled forums to find good threads then back to other topics to post links. It just doesn''t happen. I don''t see how making it only slightly easier will spur much more interest in such a thing.

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Well, perhaps because with a wiki, the only way you can create a new topic is to link to it.

Edit: And because with a wiki, things aren''t time sensitive. Old topics aren''t any harder to find or see than new topics, so if the link hierarchy is reasonably easy to understand, then you''re more likely to find whatever has already been written about a topic. With the forum, you have to use the search, and although it looks easy, it can sometimes be difficult to choose key words which will get you the results you''re really looking for.

John B

[edited by - JohnBSmall on January 12, 2004 6:11:03 PM]

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But with the amount of traffic here, I think the culling of old topics is a good thing, not a bad one. Wiki''s are wonderful for mature communities who want to establish an easy-to-access knowledge base on a single topic, but for such a widespread range of topics and ideas such as are discussed on Gamedev, I think it''d end up being chaos.

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Original post by Run_The_Shadows
But with the amount of traffic here, I think the culling of old topics is a good thing, not a bad one. Wiki''s are wonderful for mature communities who want to establish an easy-to-access knowledge base on a single topic, but for such a widespread range of topics and ideas such as are discussed on Gamedev, I think it''d end up being chaos.

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Well, I think a wiki could handle a large range of topics and ideas reasonably well, if it had a good structure created at the beginning, into which topics and discussions could be fitted.

Personally, I think the main difficulty would simply be lack of thought by posters. I think there are probably two ways that a wiki system can work - one is if the users are intelligent enough to think about what they post, where they should post it and how they should integrate it into the existing topics, and the other is to have an army of people with plenty of time on their hands to fix the mistakes everyone keeps making with their posts. Unfortunately, option two isn''t feasible, and option one probably isn''t the case here.

John B

So far I think the only really valid concern was the one Michalson raised in that older thread, that of misinformation.

Vandalism is, IMHO, a minor concern. If a user can easily stick a picture of goatse on a page, another user could just as easily revert the page to a previous version. Maybe use user ID''s as authentication before any changes are made (adding or reverting) if you want so that troublesome users can be banned.

As far as maturity goes, as long as the vast majority of users are mature enough to use the wiki properly, I don''t think the small percentage of malicious users would be a big enough problem to worry about. Maturity in the Lounge might be relativily low, but generally everyone in the other forums is very well behaved.

What''s a wiki?

I would''ve thought that unintentional misinformation would be no larger a problem in a wiki than a forum. If someone posts something incorrect, then why is it more likely to be corrected in a forum than if it was posted in a wiki?

I think something related might be a problem though, and that is information being correct when it was posted, but then getting out of date. Unless someone notes in the topic that the information they''re providing may change in the future, then someone looking for that information (who almost by definition won''t know what is correct) will find it and assume that it is current.
I suppose this could be combatted slightly by having an automated message put at the top of old posts warning people that they could be out of date, although that seems slightly clumsy.

John B

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Original post by Naaga
What''s a wiki?

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The WikiPedia article about Wiki.

John B

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Original post by BradDaBug
Maybe there''s already a game developer wiki somewhere else?

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There was a Gamedev wiki set up a while ago, but it never really took off. Initially, there were a few FAQs added, and some community information, but not much happened after that. I''ve lost the URL, but I suspect the site was taken down anyway.

Slightly necroed, but I figured I''d let folks know about this. I''ve created the beginnings of a game development wiki. Check it out.

http://fwheel.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl

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http://www.flipcode.com -- Far superior to Gamedev in every way.

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Hmm.

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Original post by MDI

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http://www.flipcode.com -- Far superior to Gamedev in every way.

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Hmm.

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What? You want to say he''s wrong?