http://www.gamedev.net/community/forums ... _id=482792

GameDev has rather offhandedly thrown up a temporary wiki, but they seem set on launching it full-throttle after a month.

Why reinvent the wheel?

The lack of a wiki was noticed a long time ago, and it took them until the wave finally hit to get on the ball.

GPWiki answered the call and has continually been a source of up-to-date information.

If these beginning steps aren't planned carefully, it could be bad for both sides.

What are people thinking about this?

_________________
http://boder.games.googlepages.com/

Posted a response in the GameDev thread.

_________________
Bored? Head on over to my blog and see what I'm up to.

Microsoft XNA MVP

Oluseyi contacted me a few days ago about the possibility of collaboration. I told him I was open to it, and was interested in hearing the specifics of his plan.

We may meet up next week at the GDC to discuss things.

In any case: How do you guys feel about it? What sort of things would you like to see (or be willing to accept) if there was a collaboration between GPWiki and GameDev.net?

I will not, of course, do anything without running it by you guys first!

_________________
FizzBall, Professor Fizzwizzle, The Amazing Brain Train, and My Tribe!

Anything that brings more people in sounds like a good idea to me.

_________________
In brightest day, in blackest night. No evil shall escape my sight. Let those who worship evil's might, beware my power... Green Lantern's light!
Twitter!

I think it's a great idea. I talk to the gamedev people (like Oluseyi and superpig) on irc in their afternet channel, and they've never talked about it. Sounds fun. A wiki is better than their current article system anyways.

_________________
/\/////////// \\\\\\\\\\\/\S
/\/////////\\ //\\\\\\\\\/\I - Assault Wars
/\///////\\//|\\//\\\\\\\/\R - - Work in Progress
/\/////\\////|\\\\//\\\\\/\I
/\///\\/////\|/\\\\\//\\\/\S

It sounds like a good idea to me. Hopefully they won't demand that the name be changed or something like that however something like "the offical gamedev.net wiki" somewhere on the front page would be nice to have. I'm just curious on what will be added once they come aboard, maybe we can transfer some of their articles into the wiki (the ones that aren't horribly outdated .

This sounds like a good thing to me... at least it's a move that makes logical sense, as opposed to the Wikia proposal, which was more of a "we want to gobble you up to fill a hole in our WikiNet" kind of thing.

I've posted my thoughts in the GameDev thread:

http://www.gamedev.net/community/forums ... _id=482792

Two wikis would be less beneficial for everyone; as long as we can come to an agreement that satisfies you guys, I'm happy to do what it takes.

_________________
FizzBall, Professor Fizzwizzle, The Amazing Brain Train, and My Tribe!

I don't know. It really depends on how things are done. If the wiki has to move to their server(s) with ASP stuff, I am totally against. The performance of the site is so horrible, that I barely visit it anymore.

I don't know how a "merger" would work out:

- Having a wiki.gamedev.net which resolves to gpwiki.org?
- Simply redirecting people over there
- User accounts will always be seperate unless MAJOR database changes have been made

I really think Wiki's and forums should grow naturally. GPWiki did, GameDev did. Allow it to grow too fast, and it will hurt badly. Like those new game developments forums which sometimes popup with an 90% copy of the forum names of GD.net. Such things simply won't work.

But, Gamedev.net has it's good share of forum posts, which contains a lot of knowledge. Our forums too, but I suppose (quite) less techy and advanced then what they have.

Our wiki ofcourse is also a nice resource. Information written on the forums could be shared on the wiki. But, are people willing to do so? If only 10 people are interested in a wiki, of the 1000's of memebers @ GD.net, I really don't think it's worth the hassle.

Two separate wiki's won't work though. And inter wiki links do not really work our either imo.

On a side note, what I have thought for years, is that GD should create a decent search engine (for example using Xapian and Omega). Their current method using Google simply won't work out well.

Other question: What would happen to these forums? I mean we are a close group together for about 10 years (most people here know each other from VBGC) .

I'm open to it, but I'm also a bit skeptical towards the situation. Do not give away your cards too soon...


this was a quick message, now I need to go back to the luggage .

_________________
Serious game developer

http://www.persistentrealities.com
http://www.persistentrealities.com/vbfibre
http://www.ambiances.nl

I agree with all of your concerns, Almar, and they would certainly need to be addressed. We still have not yet heard what the GameDev.net people would want, so I guess we'll have to wait and see.

_________________
FizzBall, Professor Fizzwizzle, The Amazing Brain Train, and My Tribe!

Somekind of wiki merger would be alright in my book, after all it's just tutorials and articles in the end, where it's located isn't too important in my book.

But I prefer the forums here than at GameDev, I basically don't go there anymore because

a) There are lots of Noobs
b) Everyone wants to make an MMO
c) People aren't as friendly/helpful as people here
d) I've become more experienced over the last couple of years so I haven't needed as much help
e) There are too many forum categories at gameDev
f) The colour scheme is not as nice (imo)
g) I hung out at Lucky's VBgaming site so I guess its just a natural follow on to be here.

_________________
Attack of the Meeplings - Free 2D Arcade Shooter
Caverns of Underkeep - Free Browser Based Roguelike

Yes, I am also somewhat afraid of a forum merger... I like our group here, and wouldn't like it if our camaraderie were drowned out.

Some sort of wiki collaboration would be preferable, in my mind.

_________________
FizzBall, Professor Fizzwizzle, The Amazing Brain Train, and My Tribe!

I'm a member at both GameDev and here and I rarely, if ever, post over at GameDev. Simply because the community here is just that much more friendly and helpful. However, we are losing members here at an alarming rate, and the people who used to post like 40 times a day rarely show their faces anymore. We need new members bad and if merging the wiki's will help achieve that I'm all for.

_________________
In brightest day, in blackest night. No evil shall escape my sight. Let those who worship evil's might, beware my power... Green Lantern's light!
Twitter!

I was just going to say, atleast we get Jack back (jollyjeffers)

_________________
Serious game developer

http://www.persistentrealities.com
http://www.persistentrealities.com/vbfibre
http://www.ambiances.nl

are you sure you're loosing members!! I'm still here (almost a year since my last post ((((lazy )))) ). I really need to finish my articles on the wiki.

_________________
I must be the laziest guy around here.

And then there's this:
http://www.devmaster.net/wiki/Main_Page

I don't see why the Gamedev people can't just come here. They have nothing so far.

We needs more publicity, I think.

In reality gamedev can just take the content due to the licensing on gpwiki, but is it a good idea to move the wiki there?


I am of the other opinion that monopolies are not the best solution for the good of all.






If gamedev are set on creating a wiki, just spread the knowledge by giving them the content and continue on with life here.

I guess, for me, the ideal solution would be to somehow share a database server with the GameDev.net wiki. That way gpwiki.org can stay the same, and they can have wiki.gamedev.net (with a different skin on the data), and our forums can stay intact.

That would improve and increase the exposure of the wiki content itself, without destroying our community.

_________________
FizzBall, Professor Fizzwizzle, The Amazing Brain Train, and My Tribe!

We're never going to update, are we?

_________________
All I want is a kind word, a warm bed, and ultimate power.

In a wiki, red is the ugliest colour.

I don't see any reason for the forums to merge at all unless Lucky just wanted to just put the whole site in GameDev's hands after having to deal with us punks (especially Machaira) for so long. The idea behind a forum and a wiki is completely difficult. Whether or not they're meant for socializing, that is what they become. What everyone says and contributes is clearly marked. A wiki, on the other hand, is a mash-up of everyone's contributions into one. That would be like if we had a single post per topic and everyone contributed by just pressing the Edit button and modifying the original post.

Multiple wikis on the same topic is a waste because wikis are, at least in good practice, very factual and non-biased. Multiple forums, on the other hand, are good because they are very biased and a hit-and-miss with facts. When I post here, I want the opinions of the people here. I don't just post here because it is convenient. I hardly even associate the GPWiki with the GPWiki Forums except for that one wittle category known as "Wiki Discussion", and that is the only section I could see that would have any reason to be, and should be, merged.



I would agree if the product resulted in some form of financial benefit. But when it is two groups of people writing the same content, for free, for others to view it, for free, then it just becomes wasted effort. If GPWiki and GameDev's wiki wanted to go in different paths of writing style, structure and formatting to a quite extreme level (such as one being very informal like a forum post while the other being very formal and technical like Wikipedia) then I can see the point of two wikis. Though, this isn't how the GPWiki is designed and I have a very hard time seeing the majority of the GameDev community wanting a highly informal wiki.



I like this suggestion. The only real benefit I see of two different sets of wikis is having them conform to the site around them. Though with MediaWiki's skinning, this should hardly be a problem. Queries from wiki.gamedev.net could default to a GameDev skin while gpwiki.org defaults to the GPWiki skin. GameDev could even integrate it into their site, or integrate their site into the skin, retaining the GameDev header. I don't even see a need for the databases having to be shared for this unless GameDev wanted to integrate their site users into the wiki's users like they have with the forum.

_________________
NetGore - Open source online RPG engine