Google Group or Elanthipedia:Village Pump?
Farman
Farman:
>Actually come to think of it, why aren't all of these discussions taking place in the Elanthipedia namespace?
Callek:
>Because I wanted to allow for (easier) comprehension of the thoughts and ideas, than is possible on an arbitrary wiki talk page.
Discussions in a wiki don't have to be restricted to talk pages, and
they can be organized just as well as, if not better than an off-site
discussion board. The Village Pump paradigm on Wikipedia (http://
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump) provides an excellent
model for how it could be done. And IMO thoughts and ideas will be
comprehensible solely to the extent the author does a good job of
presenting his or her point. The purpose of the <wikiname> namespace
is for policy and other meta-wiki discussions and articles to be
placed there so that they are freely accessible to all users of the
wiki.
That final bit is really the crux of the issue for me.
The defining purpose of a public wiki is its dedication to open
collaborative editing. And that entire concept is founded on, and
requires transparency, which is necessary so that new editors can
participate fully in the growth of the wiki and in the community of
fellow editors. Holding discussions that lead to important decisions
about the wiki on an external web site means that these discussions
are not available for immediate and unrestricted review on the wiki
itself, and thus a barrier is added, however slight, to complete and
open participation by any who wish to do so. And so those decisions
and the discussions that led to them are not fully transparent to the
community as a whole.
Now in no way am I trying to imply that anyone here is trying to be
exclusionary, far from that. I think we have a nice little community
growing, everyone's intentions are impeccable, and the discussions to
date have all been fruitful, fair and considerate. I'm excited about
the prospects for Elanthipedia and I think we're off to a great
start. But the very nature of having important policy discussions off-
site means that these discussions are not available on the wiki
itself, and thus they are less transparent. We are a very small group
at present but as Elanthipedia grows I feel that this will stifle the
power of the community by potentially cutting us off from good ideas.
>From a practical standpoint I also feel holding discussions on the
wiki itself will make the discussions more productive, since we would
be able to freely mark up our posts with links and formatting just
like any other wiki contribution. And from an administrative
perspective I can only imagine it has to be easier not managing a
discussion group in addition to the wiki itself.
On the other hand I can see that for a small fan site with no income
such as Elanthipedia, if storage and bandwidth considerations are an
critcial factor, it could be more economical to have discussions
offsite. But I'm guessing it won't really make that much difference.
To summarize, I think we should develop a Village Pump section in the
Elanthipedia namespace, and hold our discussions there so they are
fully and completely open to all contributors to the wiki. When that
section is up and running, we should close this discussion group.
Currently the front-page community portal link is a small grouping of
external DR-related links, but I think it should be the main page for
the Elanthipedia community, with links to the village pump, project
pages, and other such sections, like it is on Wikipedia.
Justin Wood (Callek)
Editing on elanthipedia, unlike wikipedia is done only after a
registration, with an e-mail. E-mail addresses are not a big barrier
to entry, as nearly everyone online has one, everyone who plays DR has
one (at least for their play.net info), and there are PLENTY of free
venue's for e-mail out there, GMail being one of them.
Secondly, there is little to NO learning curve for e-mail, while for
wiki _editing_ there is. How to even find the edit button is but one
learning curve. IMO everyone who may want to contribute to these
discussions is not necessarily someone who is/can/or wants to (yet)
edit an article.
E-mail is a much easier venue for most of us to gather information
from, since nearly everyone can access (and send) e-mail from a wide
variety of places, a blackberry, work, home, etc, included. While
reading and watching recent changes on a wiki for a GAME is hard to
sell to a boss, and harder still on some devices.
There is no instant notification when (more than one) change to a page
occurrs with the wiki, and even the first notification only happens
when you WATCH the discussion you care about.
The past discussions/e-mails are searchable, and easily findable.
Unlike wikipedia's "Village Pump" for example.
I feel the opposit as you, basically, I feel we are including more
people potentially who may want to contribute to a discussion by
having this list than excluding.
If you have not witnessed, the "Notice" of the Secrets discussion, is
sitting in a bolded area on the MAIN page of the wiki, with links here
to join/read it.
The wiki is not just for editors, but also for people who want to use
it. We require editors sign up, anyone can use. Wikipedia does NOT
require editors to sign-up, which is why it is better for them there
(though they do have various LISTS too).
I am *not* against better HELP in the Elanthipedia namespace, Policies
that are easier to find, a form of a General "Ask generic questions
here" similar to Village Pump (we don't need the fine-grained controll
of topics they have), a FAQ or similar ideas, but the mailing list
(Google Group) serves a very specific service, and that is allowing
more people to contribute to thoughts and discussions quicker and more
easily than through the wiki.
As well as allowing finer reading/comprehension of threads (writing
skill notwithstanding) where-as if it was solely on the wiki we would
have to add another level to that "formatting/wiki skill"
Basically its all about who will use the wiki. Wikipedia is a bit
different than us, where we have a potentially LARGE clientelle of
USERS, with a smaller clientelle of editors, (hopefully larger group
of potential editors).
Having discussions here does not preclude those people who are not
editors and not wanting to learn (yet) how to edit from actually
contributing to the discussion.
....now that I think I've talked in a few circles, I'm just gonna sign this.
~Justin Wood (Callek)
p.s. I do not disagree with "Currently the front-page community portal
link is a small grouping of
external DR-related links, but I think it should be the main page for
the Elanthipedia community, with links to the village pump, project
pages, and other such sections, like it is on Wikipedia." but we need
more of our own content up there to actually make it work.
On 5/11/07, Farman <thre...@verizon.net> wrote:
>
(trimmed)
Farman
Your objections seem focused on ease-of-use issues, so I will address
those.
The learning curve for posting comments on a wiki page is pretty
darned low, and the learning curve for using a web discussion group
such as this one is not zero. Finding the edit button on a wiki page
is precisely as difficult as finding where the 'reply' link is in your
email software or on the web page for the google group, so IMO that's
a push. Also, we're talking about a community of people who play an
RPG text MUD. That's a rather niche hobby as far as using a computer
goes, and given the above-average technical complexity of playing DR,
I'm guessing that DR players are generally going to have an easier
time learning wikicode than 'normal' people. Even further, the
smaller subset of people who would be motivated to participate in
policy discussions rather than just browse content would most likely
have already contributed to articles and thus already know enough
wikicode to make a post.
I do not have access to a keyboard at work, and while I check email
during the day from my smartphone, I don't use it to compose posts for
message boards. My participation on these boards, as well as the
several other non-DR forums I keep up with, occurs in the evenings, on
weekends, or other days off, from home. Instant notifications aren't
important to me personally. I am sure I am not the only one here who
follows my paradigm of board access, just as I am sure you are not the
only one who follows yours. Respectfully I must point out that the
assertion 'e-mail is a much easier venue for most of us to gather
information from' is an unfounded claim.
And I don't see where searchability or accessibility is any different
between the two. Searching in the "Elanthipedia" namespace is all it
would take to locate a discussion or post that is located there. And
if properly set up, a village pump would be just as easy to navigate
by thread as a google group (which you must admit has pretty primitive
threading), with the added benefit that there's going to be less
server load on Elanthipedia and a shorter posting lag.
I don't intend to stir up a hornet's nest with this, but I thought
this was an important matter for discussion, so we could address this
while Elanthipedia is still quite small and young. Naturally, having
opened my big mouth, I am willing to work on setting it up ;) I have
not just gone ahead and done so since I think there should be one and
only one place for policy and administrative discussions, so we don't
waste effort and chase our tails. I believe that place should be
within Elanthipedia itself for the reasons I have detailed here and in
my original post.
Maybe I'm seeing Elanthipedia too much from the Wikipedia model, but I
hope the principles of community and consensus will be followed here
as well. I'm curious what everyone thinks about this.
> On 5/11/07, Farman <three...@verizon.net> wrote:
>
> (trimmed)
Justin Wood (Callek)
>
> I guess we will have to agree to disagree about the main points here.
>
Most likely that will be the case ;-)
> Your objections seem focused on ease-of-use issues, so I will address
> those.
Fair enough, let me respond directly to each point ;-)
>
> The learning curve for posting comments on a wiki page is pretty
> darned low, and the learning curve for using a web discussion group
> such as this one is not zero.
This statement assumes that you HAVE to navigate to the google group
to subscribe, not the case, you can fire off an e-mail, and viola your
in ;-)
> Finding the edit button on a wiki page
> is precisely as difficult as finding where the 'reply' link is in your
> email software or on the web page for the google group, so IMO that's
> a push.
"Maybe", but at least people have ALREADY learned how to use e-mail,
using a wiki is new to those people.
> Also, we're talking about a community of people who play an
> RPG text MUD. That's a rather niche hobby as far as using a computer
> goes, and given the above-average technical complexity of playing DR,
> I'm guessing that DR players are generally going to have an easier
> time learning wikicode than 'normal' people.
My mother and aunt for example, have played games such as Kings Quest,
Police Quest etc. (early variants), where TYPING to actually DO stuff
is commonplace, I'm sure many others have as well. The fact that the
younger of us who play DR tend to be "fairly computer saavy" does not
make that a strictly common-place. The wizard FE was nixed as the
*primary* FE for DR mainly due to usability for those (good number) of
primary (and new) customers for DR and GSIV who are not computer
saavy, hence the default input line being "Say". I just find your
conclusion that just because people play DR they can figure this out
easily, unfounded.
> Even further, the
> smaller subset of people who would be motivated to participate in
> policy discussions rather than just browse content would most likely
> have already contributed to articles and thus already know enough
> wikicode to make a post.
>
To use the secrets policy as a root example, people surely will find
issues they want to discuss just by browsing, such as "should we be
showing the solution to the 100'th circle Thief Ability Quest on the
wiki" (to use a far-fetched secrets thing). Those people may not care
to edit on the wiki, and *may* only use it for Raniks Maps, but that
doesn't change the fact that they want to voice their opinions on
whether we even should show it.
> I do not have access to a keyboard at work, and while I check email
> during the day from my smartphone, I don't use it to compose posts for
> message boards. My participation on these boards, as well as the
> several other non-DR forums I keep up with, occurs in the evenings, on
> weekends, or other days off, from home. Instant notifications aren't
> important to me personally. I am sure I am not the only one here who
> follows my paradigm of board access, just as I am sure you are not the
> only one who follows yours.
Basically, w/ no keyboard at work, I wonder how you use a computer
screen of any sort :-) (as in navigating to the wiki). So I don't see
how *this* change one way or the other affects anything based on what
you say here.
> Respectfully I must point out that the
> assertion 'e-mail is a much easier venue for most of us to gather
> information from' is an unfounded claim.
I mean that quite literally, _many_ people want the ease of receiving
data to them, instead of having to _actively_ seek it out themselves.
There is a LARGE trend in information gathering rather then actually
going to get it, for things you care about. E-mail lists facilitate
this, and countless studies have shown subscribing to an e-mail list
and actually getting your info that way, is far easier for *most* than
otherwise.
Those of us in the tech industry may prefer it the other way around
(in some situations I do) but doesn't change the fact that we have to
look "outside *our own* box at the rest of the world"
> And I don't see where searchability or accessibility is any different
> between the two. Searching in the "Elanthipedia" namespace is all it
> would take to locate a discussion or post that is located there.
Well, a few things here. (a) MediaWiki Searching is severely limited,
I'm actually considering looking into alternate search providers for
the wiki. (b) Google Searching is possible of the real pages on the
wiki. (c) once an archive is removed from active page(s) neither
google searching or MediaWiki Searching will find it, only reviewing
HISTORY entries on the archives page will.
> And
> if properly set up, a village pump would be just as easy to navigate
> by thread as a google group (which you must admit has pretty primitive
> threading),
Fairly easy to navigate, probably. But also having a "properly set up
Village Pump" would take more work out of the allready laxing other
development of Elanthipedia. Also I never claimed searching/viewing
by thread in Google Groups was the best way to navigate/search.
You can also use webmail such as Yahoo, AOL, GMail, Hotmail, among
others to search/view your e-mail. You could use an E-mail Client
such as Thunderbird, Outlook [Express], Eudora, or others as well to
search/read the messages.
> with the added benefit that there's going to be less
> server load on Elanthipedia and a shorter posting lag.
>
Are you joking?, google has the BEST server load balancing, and
redundancy checks I've ever seen in any commercial company, including
microsoft. EVERYTHING on google runs fast for me, and has NEVER not.
> I don't intend to stir up a hornet's nest with this, but I thought
> this was an important matter for discussion, so we could address this
> while Elanthipedia is still quite small and young.
No problem, anything you feel needs to be discussed is fine with me,
I'll address the points from my view as well.
> Naturally, having
> opened my big mouth, I am willing to work on setting it up ;) I have
> not just gone ahead and done so since I think there should be one and
> only one place for policy and administrative discussions, so we don't
> waste effort and chase our tails.
Good idea, As I said before, TALK and Project pages should be used for
majority of things, this is just one venue for people to collaborate,
and use for some of the more involved things.
> I believe that place should be
> within Elanthipedia itself for the reasons I have detailed here and in
> my original post.
I don't disagree with using Elanthipedia, but I do disagree with the
desire to shut this down, but I also don't think we should heavily
encourage ALL CHAT to be on elanthipedia, its not a forum, its not a
discussion board, its a wikipedia for elanthia.
> Maybe I'm seeing Elanthipedia too much from the Wikipedia model, but I
> hope the principles of community and consensus will be followed here
> as well. I'm curious what everyone thinks about this.
We have set out to model wikipedia as much as makes sense, and in this
case we don't have as wide an audience as wikipedia, we don't have
anon edits (nor do I think we want them), we dont' have the spam
problem (yet).
We have the unique desire to write the details on an ever evolving
game, an MUD at that. One all of us play, that doesn't have a listing
of numbers at our fingertips, with quirks too numerous to count, a
vast story/history, stuff anyone can do and still not know ALOT about
the game, etc. etc. etc.
We cover more of a specific "venue" than wikipedia, but also have a
smaller set of potential contributor's. And without the years of
policy writing time.
I'd rather keep the barrier to entry down.
Realize, I haven't even written the DRAFT of the policy, as I _will_
place the draft of the policy on the wiki, and allow discussion either
on its talk page, or here, whichever is more convenient. I personally
prefer here, but I was collecting information for my policy endeavor.
Consider, MANY people have never heard of wikipedia, MANY people who
have heard of it, never even viewed the Policy Docs or the Project
Pages, even less have tried to read its Help Docs (other than the
quick-ref). Just because we have and we play DR doesn't mean Bob's
grandmother, who logs onto her computer, checks e-mail for pictures of
her grandchildren and loads up the SGE for Wizard and plays a 90'th
circle empath, (and calls her son up on the phone to remind her how to
load up TriPeaks) has.
~Justin Wood (Callek)
Farman
tit-for-tat thread like so many discussions turn into on the DR
boards ;) I will just say that I disagree with and question the
relevance of many of the assertions you made in support of your
arguments in the above reply, and leave it at that.
Now if we haven't already scared everyone else away...
The only relevant question is, what do people *here* want to do.
Arguments based on societal generalizations or studies are
irrelevant. My opinion taken by itself, Callek's opinion taken by
itself, don't really matter. The only thing that matters here is the
consensus of *this* community.
We're a tiny tiny group and chances are we will always remain very
small. But even so, the essential spirit of a public wiki is that
community decides, not individuals.
I will summarize my position:
Google groups pros:
- Already set up.
- For those who desire it, can be accessed purely through email.
Google group cons:
- Added layer of access necessary to participate in discussions
detracts from the openness and transparency of policy decisions on
Elanthipedia. (this is really my strongest objection, and the fact
that access to these groups is relatively easy misses the point)
- Mediocre interface and features.
Elanthipedia:Village Pump pros:
- Contained within the wiki itself, for maximum transparency and ease
of access.
- Wikitext and markup allows for more productive and intuitive
discussion
Elanthipedia:Village Pump cons:
- Needs to be set up from scratch.
Anyone contributing to Elanthipedia will have to learn at least basic
wikitext, and how to work their way around a talk page. In my opinion
it's a very simple task however and a small hurdle to overcome.
Naeya
2 copper in anyway.
Frankly, it is a bit cumbersome for me to check this list, even via
email. That's probably because I already have 50 things that I'm
doing online at once, and I've been rather busy lately with RL. A bit
sad as I was the one who set up the list. I've seen it work well on
another game wiki that I helped with (www.eq2i.com). So I guess this
impasse is my doing.
I took at look at the Village Pump on Wikipedia. It is a viable
method of communication on policies, help, etc. As is this list.
The only issue with changing over to a Village Pump type setup with
Elanthipedia is the amount of discussion that's already taken place
here.
I know between the two of you, we'll probably not get an agreement
either way.
At this point, I'd like to get other people's input on this. I'd like
to go with a consensus if possible.
Justin Wood (Callek)
> At this point, I'd like to get other people's input on this. I'd like
> to go with a consensus if possible.
This, I am sure me and Farman can easily agree too.
~Justin Wood (Callek)