An auspicious proposal: A Wiki made for clans - EncyCLANpedia.

[Dairuka]

It's perfectly understandable that the workings of the Off Topic forum are typically avoided by the more prestigious moderators and higher ups among the Total Gaming Network, and the executives above them. However, the recent activities have led to a rather fun, community based, 'movement' that we've affectionately called the "Mo0bment" after one of the Off Topic Forum's more favored members.

Part of the Mo0bment gag, was that we were going to make it into a clan, with it's own Wiki-page, giving it a sense of vindication. Almost as if owning that Wiki-page made it official.

What we discovered over the past few days, is that there is a severe gap in community belonging within Wikipedia's. While there are indeed, game specific wikipedias with knowledge based on their chosen game, or games. There are no communities! Instead, it's a collective of elitists who reign over their wikipedia with an iron fist. Thus, excluding clans, gaming and forum communities.

This concept is in a sense, a business proposal. It's fair to believe that the Total Gaming Network is increasingly successful because it's community is strong, and growing fast. Especially among it's forum dwellers. With all the recent changes being made, we know that TGN is expanding to new ideas every day, integrating X-fire and Skype to the forums even!

We at the Off Topic forum, believe that this could be expanded upon even further! A MyIS Wikipedia, built by it's own community, to service gaming communities for all games! An EncyCLANpedia!

Imagine, a wikipedia filled to the brim with clan pages for clan's to promote their servers. Classic-Wiki style pages, with information on old games, new games, upcoming games, reviews. Most of all, the thing that wikipedia's lack right now, is a sense of belonging for the community as a whole. That while there is an editor keeping a watchful eye; the direction of the wiki is community based, and not just solely for information.

This is a business proposal, simply because a server would be required to host the program. However, the work on the site is not going to be shouldered by MyIS or TGN alone. The Off Topic Forum community itself would contribute greatly to the content, advertising and administrating of the EncyClanPedia. With a co-ordinated effort, we could make it work.

Finally, think of the advertising possibilities, and increase in user traffic. Clans from every game, would jump at the chance of having their own clan-webpage to promote their servers, without having to resort to LiveJournal, FaceBook or Myspace. True, they already have their own clan-pages, but if this idea takes off, it could become the proving-ground for new clans that haven't already set up a web-page yet.

Please let me know what you think.

[Alex98uk]

Wow, you took my comment srsly!

[therealmat]

tis' a very good idea in my opinion. :nod:

[Mo0by]

I think its a great idea, I'm not just saying that because of you know what.:p Through you guys at myis could get even better known throughout your own games-gaming communities, which could lead to expansions on to all games, and a staple site of any gamers bookmark list, like xfire and teamspeak.


"Mo0bment" after one of the Off Topic Forum's more favored members.

Me?! <3

[Webs961]

This is a good idea, except for a few points. For those of you who don't know me, you'll understand that I tend to play the devil's advocate on large projects; the more problems you anticipate ahead of time, the better the final result will be. I suppose you could say this comes from a coder who has learned that lack of planning usually results in failure, but hey, this is a different sort of experiment I suppose.


Vandalism would be nasty. I'm not just talking about bots, I'm talking about mainly users with bones to pick or simply the immature people who like to cause problems for other users. That could come from a variety of sources, but I would think that the main two would be ex-clan members with a bone to pick or other clans who dislike the clan on the page. As you can see by searching the forums, that tends to happen quite a bit.
The new Wiki would need a unique set of rules for its existance: The current forum rules wouldn't cover the points associated with a wiki. While what you're trying to do is supposed to be free-spirited (And by-and-by, it should be for the most part), I'm afraid you haven't taken people's ego and pride into the equation. For instance, you mention the core of elitists at the center of the Wikipedia gaming group (for lack of a better term). Having sysoped a few semi-popular Wiki's before, I can tell you that people get protective of pages which they have written. Ergo, you get that core of elitists, de facto. The arguments write themselves already.


My only other thought would be that forum activity may diminish somewhat, though that may not necessarily be a problem. For more of the hardcore posters (you know who you are ;) ), I doubt that would diminish your forum activity significantly. Heck, I could see other people spamming up their edit count and then boasting in their forum sig, "Most prolific editor on the EncyClanPedia," and they should be rightfully proud if what they have done is productive.


Despite the tone of the above, I do sincerely like this as a great community building block, and it would help integrate new clans (and members alike) into the community fold. Ultimately, I would second the suggestion for this community wiki, with some more planning, of course.

Excellent work Dairuka. :salute: You do the OT community proud.

[CaptainKirk]

I can't believe someone from the OT section formed sentences...

But it sounds like a great idea! Vandals can be dealt with the same way wikipedia does -> mass numbers of bots for various topics and a huge moderation team. (Also page edit restrictions...)

[iPirate]

<--likes it. :p

[Dairuka]

This is a good idea, except for a few points. For those of you who don't know me, you'll understand that I tend to play the devil's advocate on large projects; the more problems you anticipate ahead of time, the better the final result will be. I suppose you could say this comes from a coder who has learned that lack of planning usually results in failure, but hey, this is a different sort of experiment I suppose.

The actual negative points were purposely excluded from the proposal to make it sound exciting. I prefer to hammer out the details during the actual negotiating process. Something which I've had to do for numerous publishings.

Vandalism would be nasty. I'm not just talking about bots, I'm talking about mainly users with bones to pick or simply the immature people who like to cause problems for other users. That could come from a variety of sources, but I would think that the main two would be ex-clan members with a bone to pick or other clans who dislike the clan on the page. As you can see by searching the forums, that tends to happen quite a bit.

We need to keep the most important and most ban-worthy rules in plain, easy to read sentences on the front page for everybody to read every-time they visit the site.

The new Wiki would need a unique set of rules for its existance: The current forum rules wouldn't cover the points associated with a wiki. While what you're trying to do is supposed to be free-spirited (And by-and-by, it should be for the most part), I'm afraid you haven't taken people's ego and pride into the equation. For instance, you mention the core of elitists at the center of the Wikipedia gaming group (for lack of a better term). Having sysoped a few semi-popular Wiki's before, I can tell you that people get protective of pages which they have written. Ergo, you get that core of elitists, de facto. The arguments write themselves already.

Make it clear that this is a community effort, and that anything written in a wiki is Public intellectual property (Excluding Personal Vanity Pages {If we allow them}, and Clan Pages.), so long as any and all changes made, fully relate to the subject at hand.

(Disclaimer: This next suggestion is a long-shot, and will stress out any well versed programmer and wiki-administrator who reads it: Perhaps we could integrate an invite only user-group system. This way only clan-members who in a sense {own} the page can edit them.)

More-so, we should make it clear that personal attack's on an individual or clan (Even less reputable clans like digital Anarchy!) will be a ban worthy offense on ALL MyIS products. (This'll discourage the forum-go'ers especially.)

Finally, simply make it clear that all arguments are to be outsourced from the Wiki to the forum. Elitists can be elitists all they want, just as long as it doesn't affect the Wiki. Editing wars can be stemmed through page edit restrictions.

My only other thought would be that forum activity may diminish somewhat, though that may not necessarily be a problem. For more of the hardcore posters (you know who you are ;) ), I doubt that would diminish your forum activity significantly. Heck, I could see other people spamming up their edit count and then boasting in their forum sig, "Most prolific editor on the EncyClanPedia," and they should be rightfully proud if what they have done is productive.

My suggestion is to add an EncyClanPedia forum; and expand on the idea that I have presented to you, by integrating "edit counts" kind of like our "post counts", or by adding unique EncyClanPedia forum titles as you've just suggested.

Not only will you retain all of the spammers you have now, but you'll gain a buttload of new spammers who would like the idea of Wikipedia and Forum-trolling coming together.

Despite the tone of the above, I do sincerely like this as a great community building block, and it would help integrate new clans (and members alike) into the community fold. Ultimately, I would second the suggestion for this community wiki, with some more planning, of course.

The proposal was actually rushed; due in part to the fact that I had a meeting at 2pm Pacific Time. I even stated to Alex98uk over X-fire that, "I probably should've kept this to myself, until I fully know what I'm doing." after making the original post.

Excellent work Dairuka. :salute: You do the OT community proud.

Just make sure everybody in the Mo0by clan get's it's own Individual Vanity Wiki. Even if Individual Vanity Wiki's aren't allowed. :cool:

Maybe some administrative positions too. *Wink* *Wink*

I can't believe someone from the OT section formed sentences...

You'd be even more surprised if you knew what I do for a living.

But it sounds like a great idea! Vandals can be dealt with the same way wikipedia does -> mass numbers of bots for various topics and a huge moderation team. (Also page edit restrictions...)

That was going to be one of my suggestions.

[CaptainKirk]

It sounds like you are probably a journalist or author, but to the point...

In my eyes, this is a very real possibility and one that has been tossed around before, but no serious thought has been put into it. If there is a strong commitment from the people that this will benefit (i.e. the Moobers and the Clan people), then this seems like a very plausible endeavor.

[Dairuka]

It sounds like you are probably a journalist or author, but to the point...

In my eyes, this is a very real possibility and one that has been tossed around before, but no serious thought has been put into it. If there is a strong commitment from the people that this will benefit (i.e. the Moobers and the Clan people), then this seems like a very plausible endeavor.

When you're ready to bring it live, post a recruitment thread in the off topic forum, and a promotional sticky in each of the main web-boards.

Gauge the interest based on people's posts, then decide whether or not to continue from there.

From that point on, delegate. Get one of your more dedicated administrators to continuously hire new blood to act as moderators at first, and then those recruited moderators as they gain experience, can eventually begin to hire even more moderators. Before you know it, you'll have a pool of self-sufficient moderators thats so big that you can weed out the less active or desirable ones, without hurting the Wiki's progress.

Also note that you can use your own web-boards as your main advantage over every other Wiki in existence. Remember, you have a seriously popular series of web-boards where there are thousands of people coming and going at any given time of the day. If you ask me, thats a pretty big recruitment pool to start from. You just gotta get the word out.

As for the actual content? Well, thats a given. Five or six dedicated Wiki'ers can fill that niche fast. Once thats in place, and people start noticing it's active? The clanners will pile in, all looking for a claim to fame.

If you build it. They will come.

I myself already have a thousand ideas that could make it unique. Perhaps my personal favorites, are the Professional Player Vanity Pages, where we could do interviews of professional gamers, and write up an entire Wiki Page on them, their clan, and how they got into gaming. We could then do Front-Page spotlights on them.

[Skaggy]

Mo0b number 4 approves of this proposal!

[camper.]

Mo0bmason #33 approves.


http://www.portfoliofamily.com/wp-content/photos/approved.jpg