Lachesis

That check is really just a few seconds, at the very most. Also, vandals rarely make subtle changes. And finally, since the wiki won't be hight traffic, everyone that has some spare time can look over the recent changes page and check for bad edits. In case of the sysop/original author: as I mentioned, stories are not meant to be edited at all IMO, and if so, it's up to these two people to coordinate their work. Myself, viewing the article, would not base anything on it, as it is not in the storyline namespace yet, where only completed and accepted stories should go. Like any reference, the wiki should contain only stable information; work in progress cannot be used as information source. However, we could make a work-in-progress namespace.

I won't cater people that do not know how to use a wiki, except for providing links to information like quick-start guides.

Shall I put the cassette in again? You have a wrong picture of how the author will use the wiki. You think he just clicks on an article and uses it. No. Authors will be teached (the articles still have to be written) to look in the history, using this procedure: 1) Has the article been edited recently? No -> ok, it should be fine. Yes -> 2 2) Is the last editor someone I trust? Yes -> ok, it should be fine. No -> 3 3) Do I have time to check the edit? Yes -> verify the edit. Remember the author. No -> go back to the last revision of an author I trust. In urgent cases or when you want to be 100% sure you can choose the very last option directly.

The first one that visits your article "haha, down with the rules" will see that it's vandalism and revert the edit. I would really like you to try it out without restricting access globally. It's my hope that you can regain some faith in people. In my eyes, the vast majority of people is "good", and can easily rule out any troublemakers. And after all, if that wouldn't be the case, wikipedia wouldn't work. But it obviously does.

(puts the cassette into the recorder and presses 'play') The information is reliable because you can choose a reliable author in the history. The information is reliable because you can choose a reliable author in the history. The information is reliable because you can choose a reliable author in the history. The information is reliable because you can choose a reliable author in the history. The information is reliable because you can choose a reliable author [...] P.S. Mediawiki has very strong means of quality control, just they work differently than you suggest.

Great Derin, then please try it out. About the selected few: I can tell you there will be very few people working on it anyway. So you will have your selected few And about the open for editing: you shouldn't picture it as a page where just everyone can does what he or she likes. Every single letter that is changed is logged with the change itself, the author of the change, and the date and time of the change. These info is incredibly easy to obtain; it's just on ore two clicks, as opposed to CVS for instance. Also if you don't trust the editors you can view the unedited version with only two click as well. So, in fact the information there is as reliable as the author you choose, and if you only want to trust a selected few, you can do this, just click the latest version from one of those. But it's not necessary to exclude others entirely, you will see it'll help much more than it'll hurt. Give it a chance! P.S. Something I eventually didn't mention yet: offical storyline will not be editable by everyone, it's copyrighted content and not intended to ever be edited anyway.

Wrong. I'm not even sure whether we should allow fan fiction on it at all.* It's to be a reference. You may curse it but you can't forbid people to use it. *) Discussion on article Talk:Fan_fiction

Hmm, seems there is sill some misunderstanding ... The primary use of the wiki is not intended to be the stories themselves (though they could find their place their too) but concise articles, a collection of facts. For instance, the article "The Great War" shouldn't contain Tum's full story, but the important facts about the war that other writers need for their stories. Also there should be articles that are called "Hyanithe IX" or "Lord Luxin" explaining what is known about these people, but again not complete stories. Of course, there could be a (locked) article "Stories:The Great War" that contains Tumaros' text. Also, the wiki is intended to aid in developing new stories as a reference, not as a notepad (though that would be possible as well). Finally, the content is reliable, if you want to be absolutely sure it costs you two clicks to get the last version written by an "authorized" person. I can't retell everything about how wikis work here, I'm afraid. However, this discussion consumes multiple the time it costs just reading an arbitrary one of the uncounted articles (I don't link because I have the German versions). Why can't we just try? You will see it'll work.

No I don't. (calls) Is there anyone here that agrees with Aislinn that "of inestimable value" implies "solving all problems"? (enjoys the silence) Well, you see Aislinn, nobody shares that fear with ya

I hope you didn't expect it to

As I mentioned above, and as I stated clearly on the starting page of the wiki (that none of you cared to visit so far), information that is not part of the game, like fan fiction, has to be clearly recognizable as such, for instance by marking it in some way. So your issue is actually none. Furthermore, it would be trivial to contact both authors and make them aware of the conflict, or even (if it is tiny) just correct it yourself. The other problem exists only if you plan to make completed stories editable, which I didn't expect to happen. However, of course mediawiki has a solution for that as well. First of all, yes there is a changelog, or more exactly: everyone can look up who has made exactly what changes in a comprehensive history, just like in a versioning system like SVN or CVS. Also you can have older versions displayed. And finally you can track changes in an article, and that's where your problem dissolves: every author will of course track changes on his or her work, and the "differences" view would immediately reveal the problem to the author, so the misleading formulation wouldn't even exist for long. One thing you need to understand: a wiki is not a forum. It works completely differently. It's also not a static webpage. And it's neither something between both nor a replacement for any. I can only repeat that there are numerous articles about wikipedia and how it works, in press, the web and wikipedia itself. Check them out! Finally, you can visit the test wiki and learn by doing. Lachesis

Of course I state the lack of warranty on the main page. Still I doubt that poorly informed players would edit articles -- especially since edit logs are public -- and even more I wonder how they can become misinformed, after all they have to get the wrong information somewhere I think we should try and find it out =D So far I didn't get a single PM asking for the URL Btw, I found some interesting new feature in mediawiki regarding quality assurance: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:Patrolled_edit

The problem that several people claim that an open wiki could provide reliable information, and that's what I'm arguing against Btw, I have no idea what gave you the impression that you were meant, Placid

I neither understand Derin nor Vanyel here. In my eyes believing that you can make sure you don't entirely err about a person is simply naive.

Meep! (flees)

Please move this to bug reports

IMO it can and should be both. Reasons are given above Btw, I created a playground wiki for us to experiment with what is possible. I don't want to publish the URL here but everyone can ask me for it via PM

That's not necessary, I somehow get the impression that some of your think "player=evil". :> I really recommend you to check how Wikipedia works. Millions of people rely on it, and everyone can edit it! What we nevertheless have to do is clearly state that any information that is not taken from the game itself, for instance fan fiction, has to be clearly recognizable as such. P.S. Note that it is very easy for every user to check who wrote what in an article. Also you can view the "last version from a dev" anytime, if you know the developers' nicks.

Greetings our writers, Recently, kl4Uz and me rewrote Eternal Lands Wikipedia article so that it presents the game a little. However, a paragraph entitled "The Story" is still missing. I would like to put a "teaser" for our story that both arouses interest in the reader and provides a concise overview of the most important background information, followed by a link to the full storyline on http://www.eternal-lands.com/index.php?content=story. I don't dare to write it myself though, maybe those that participated in the creation of the EL main stories can create the teaser? Or someone else? Thank you in advance! With Regards Lachesis Edit: Of course kl4Uz deserves the same credits for the WP article. Edit: kl4Uz is picky about the spelling of his name

I would prefer if people that go there know already that the information is provided by other players and thus not fully reliable, and that rather the (few) texts that are carved in stone marked in some appropriate way. This should be considered an experiment, just like wikipedia is, in the almost literal spirit of the sentence in various GNU licenses: this product is distributed in the hope that it will be helpful, with absolutely no warranty, not even for merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

Funny thing, I knew the content of your post before you even posted it, Aislinn.

Nice summary! I still think that both of the above options could be real options in the duel window. Like there were three options "no loss" "allow fleeing" and "training (receive exp)", where only one can be selected at a time.

I just wanted to say feel free to; however kl4Uz was already faster than you and added it to the Spin-Offs.

Ttlanhil, you think too much of control and labels such as "official". That's not what I want. It's to be a cooporative project, made by players for players, by authors for authors and so on. Yes, there may be people writing stupid things. But -- in contrast to a forum for instance -- the same way everyone can write stupid things, everyone can revert such changes. In case of a so called "edit war", of course there are administrative means of calming them down. Also -- in order to calm you down -- there are means of locking articles that are not meant to be edited, such as artworks. Also, you can check the author of an article's current version and all earlier version with a single click. Check the articles about Wikipedia, in press but also in Wikipedia itself, to learn more how such a project can work.

That's exactly what I mean, kl4Uz, ttlanhil is only one of many people that started to create information databases. The idea is to hold everything in one place for a real quick reference. The reason why I proposed using wikicities is that we don't have to deal with all the infrastructure, everyone can start right away building up the reference. Wikicities hosts MediaWiki, the software of Wikipedia, installations for free.