Captain Untouchable
Mar 7th, 2013, 03:26:50 PM
In a few of our discussions we've touched on having threads to help ease new people into our roleplaying settings, and to also help players keep tabs on things on an ongoing basis.
Suggestions for what these threads would contain include:
Brief summary of the major groups/teams/etc within the setting.
Brief summary of what sub-forums should be used for (Star Wars).
Character lists, possibly including a "who plays who".
Current story arcs / active threads.
Links to wiki pages for further info.
We've got all sorts of variations on these things already, so there's plenty of inspiration / past experience / etc to draw on. Other things to consider:
Will there be too much for one thread? How many posts is "too many" for one of these threads? Which types of information are more useful/important, and which are expendable?
How much detail should these threads go into on a particular topic? How much should be written down, and how much should be left to word of mouth / asking someone else to explain it?
Should there be a standard(ish) format across the board to make it familiar/easy to interpret, or do specific settings need these threads to be tailored in different ways?
Threads can only be edited by the original poster (or a mod/admin). Is this the best way of presenting this information? Is there a better way?
Who is responsible for keeping these threads up to date? What happens if they don't/can't?
*
Personally, I would like to see a lot of this information on the wiki so that anyone/everyone can keep it up to date. However, I think it would also be very helpful (in the interests of user friendliness) to have something on the forums themselves to help guide people to where on the wiki they should be looking.
Perhaps all we need is a glorified contents page: a thread of useful wiki links. Perhaps we could just have a link at the top of each forum (we can make links look like forums and stuff right?) that takes you directly to a handy little Wiki Portal page for that particular faction / setting.
I would like to see us avoid divorcing this information from the forums entirely, though. The more we integrate the wiki with the forums, and the easier it is to hop between one and the other... the more we're going to use it, and the more incentive we'll have to keep it up to date.
Suggestions for what these threads would contain include:
Brief summary of the major groups/teams/etc within the setting.
Brief summary of what sub-forums should be used for (Star Wars).
Character lists, possibly including a "who plays who".
Current story arcs / active threads.
Links to wiki pages for further info.
We've got all sorts of variations on these things already, so there's plenty of inspiration / past experience / etc to draw on. Other things to consider:
Will there be too much for one thread? How many posts is "too many" for one of these threads? Which types of information are more useful/important, and which are expendable?
How much detail should these threads go into on a particular topic? How much should be written down, and how much should be left to word of mouth / asking someone else to explain it?
Should there be a standard(ish) format across the board to make it familiar/easy to interpret, or do specific settings need these threads to be tailored in different ways?
Threads can only be edited by the original poster (or a mod/admin). Is this the best way of presenting this information? Is there a better way?
Who is responsible for keeping these threads up to date? What happens if they don't/can't?
*
Personally, I would like to see a lot of this information on the wiki so that anyone/everyone can keep it up to date. However, I think it would also be very helpful (in the interests of user friendliness) to have something on the forums themselves to help guide people to where on the wiki they should be looking.
Perhaps all we need is a glorified contents page: a thread of useful wiki links. Perhaps we could just have a link at the top of each forum (we can make links look like forums and stuff right?) that takes you directly to a handy little Wiki Portal page for that particular faction / setting.
I would like to see us avoid divorcing this information from the forums entirely, though. The more we integrate the wiki with the forums, and the easier it is to hop between one and the other... the more we're going to use it, and the more incentive we'll have to keep it up to date.