Secrets on the Wiki -- At All?

[Justin Wood (Callek)]

So, this issue at hand in this thread will be:

* Should Elanthipedia even house *any* Secrets?

To be up-front, as actually should be apparent by me even starting
this, I feel Elanthipedia should welcome secrets to be posted (Lets
try to avoid arguing on presentation/separation issues, as I will
present those in other threads)

The concerns here arise with mostly deeply guarded secrets, such as
the Moon Mage Gweth-Smasher Enchante, special forge mixes, Trader Item
Shop Pricing, Shift Quest, Thief High End abilities, etc. etc. etc.

While I do not discount anyone's desire to keep things secret,
especially my own personal desire on the like of the Trader Item
Prices, (as I probably will not post any of those). My counter
argument is when it comes to people returning after a long hiatus,
they may be able to utilize said abilities/features of the game, and
have NO idea where to start. Especially with some changed Thief
Abilities.

My Suggestion on how to run this, allow *anyone* to post secrets for
any secret they know about, if they so choose. Those of us who would
rather the secret not be told, well, have no leg to stand on in terms
of stopping them from doing so, provided they follow the other
guidelines we will outline with regards to the secret policy.

I will never force, anyone, to post secret information, as my goal is
for the better presentation of information at Elanthipedia, as a
whole, rather than to push anybody away, simply because we reveal
secrets.

Thoughts?

~Justin Wood (Callek)

[Teeklin]

The answer to this question is, ironically, another question. What is
Elanthipedia? It's all in how you answer that question as to where
you stand on secrets. When I started adding information to the Ranger
section when it was still Rawb's wiki I viewed it as I would view an
encyclopedia or a dictionary or a math book or any other source of
information. You never look in a dictionary and see, "The tiger hunts
certain forms of other animals, but you'll have to find out what it
hunts on your own!"

This is a website that could be a wealth of information to the entire
Dragonrealms playing community, and I think it should absolutely be
billed that way with no "secret" left out. Any knowledge that can be
shared, should be shared. Moreover, I think simply adding a
disclaimer on the mainpage explaining just that would be appropriate,
and keep anyone from being "spoilered" if they go exploring. There
are dozens of webpages out there with guesses and myths and secrets
and urban legends, why would we want to make another one of those?

So in my mind, posting hard numbers, full quest walkthroughs, full
puzzle solutions, anything we can get our hands on we should share
with the community at large. That's the spirit with which I posted
what I did, and I hope to continue doing just that.

-Teeklin

[Urwin]

I agree with Teeklin.

I view Elanthipedia as an utterly and totally OOC resource, and as
such have no problems posting "secrets".

I further don't think we could be rightfully held accountable for
"blowing" a spoiler regarding a quest or ability that a player
purposefully did not want to know. If you (God help you) want to go
figure out the Shift quest all on your own, all you have to do is hold
off on opening the Shift Quest article.

Some players might be miffed by this policy. Some Trader players
don't want everyone to know what they pay for things, some Thief
players don't want their abilities to be explained or even mentioned
in any IC or OOC context, some crafter characters don't want formulae
to be easy to find...

Too bad. The spice must flow. The guiding purpose of this whole
project shouldn't be dampened by their objections, in my humble
opinion.

-Urwin

[Hanryu]

I think that secrets, specifically those that deal with mechanics
issues, are ridiculous to begin with. The more correct information we
can get out there, the better. The presentation will be important but
the information needs to get out there.

--
Hanryu

[Naeya]

I too agree that we should include as much information as we can.
Once we determine what is a "secret" and what isn't, it will be easy
to mark such tidbits of information as a secret or spoiler, so as to
satisfy those who do not wish to view that information.

But yes, to answer the question regarding Elanthipedia publishing
"secrets" at all, I think we should. We are an encyclopedia, as shown
by our very name, so like Teeklin said, we should provide as much
CORRECT information as we can. That's not saying that every editor
must contribute secrets even if they don't want to. But it is saying
that we as a site (contributors as a whole) aren't going to pounce and
delete anything that's considered a secret.

My 2 copper on that question.

~Naeya

[grindinghalt]

Too often 'secrets' in DR come down to nothing more than syntax
puzzles, which are ridiculous.

There are already a couple sites that list in-game secrets, I see no
reason we shouldn't do the same.

[Farman]

Fully agree. Not having secrets would cripple the utility of the
Elanthipedia.

On the other hand I think secrets and other spoilers should be clearly
marked and segregated into their own articles so anyone who wants to
figure it out on their own, can.

[Navak]

In the same way that Navak may gleefully gweth the price of some item
or correct some misinformation, I, as the player, think secrets should
definitely have a place here.

A worthwhile storehouse of knowledge of necessity contains secrets
that people do not want shared.

I am --- Navak

[Rev. Reene]

Absolutely yes it should have secrets. As Urwin says, if someone
doesn't want to risk seeing spoilers regarding a particular aspect of
the game, they shouldn't look at the article.

Things like unbend recipes (gwethsmashers aren't really a secret
seeing as the process was posted on the boards by a player the day the
enchantment was released) and forging recipes and stuff will be
slightly painful to see "out there," but they're already out there
more or less, just in a less centralized place.

A lot of people love figuring out puzzles. More power to them. Some
people really don't, though. Some people just get frustrated and
annoyed by them and just wish they could skip that part of the game.
That's their prerogative and trying to stand in the way of that and
telling them the way they play the game is wrong feels intellectually
dishonest, especially when the purpose of this project is, I assume,
to compile and freely hand out information.

I do agree they should be tagged appropriately, though.

- Rev. Reene