Use of the Wiki

[Anthony Roberts]

Please be aware, the Wiki is here for us all to use to learn about the game.

There have been several unexplained changes lately, by players of the game and by users unknown. Such changes being advertisements for hotels and cheap drugs, others for the fabled and uninvented Desert Beavers.

Please, be aware, even if not logged into an account, your IP is logged. If actions need to be taken against you, they will. The Wiki is for your educational use, not for joking. Myself being the kidder, you'd think I'd have added several crazy animals and such to the Wiki. But I have not.

Take your immaturity elsewhere, please, and use the Wiki for what it was invented for. You to learn about gameplay. Not for your enjoyment.

And, on a side note, I'm sure none of you have put on the advertisments (Which is true by my research). However, the one that added Desert Beavers, you will have a PM shortly from me.

[olaf]

Anthony, I was just wondering, as you seem to be making/vetoing a lot of the decisions now, what an acceptable amount of detail for the wiki is?

You, under pressure, told me the exact capacities of bikes, rickshaws, etc, which I put into the wiki as a general comparison rather than specific amounts, which was what I have read is acceptable.

i.e. instead of saying a bike can hold 75000g, I said it "can hold enough for a character when they are fully loaded".

But I notice you have removed them.

Maybe for you they are not necessary, but they certainly make it a lot more clear to me what sort of vehicle I'm after, so I'm willing to bet that they'd help other people too.

Surely the argument is valid that IRL people don't make things without having some idea of what they do?

Why is it different in Cantr?

[Jos Elkink]

Anthony, I was just wondering, as you seem to be making/vetoing a lot of the decisions now, what an acceptable amount of detail for the wiki is?

The rules of that are quite clearly established now: don't mention any town names or character names and you should be in no trouble ... In other words: you can definitely mention all kinds of details about vehicles.

[Lord_Igor]

i.e. instead of saying a bike can hold 75000g, I said it "can hold enough for a character when they are fully loaded".

If you press the link for "Carryon Weight" (or go to that article some other way) you get that kind of information.

[olaf]

*bows out graciously*



A bit of a restructuring there, it seems. The layout's not what I'd call the most obvious, but the information is there if you notice it, and that's what matters to me...

Jos - Thank you, this is exactly how I took it, it's just at times it's felt like some people think Anthony has drawn slightly different lines to you...

[Anthony Roberts]

Perhaps Jos and I need to be thrown into a room to duel it out?

Yes, it may be possible that I have my own interpritation of the own rule (Which several others share, so it's not just me, I am no cult leader!), or it might be possible Jos's explaination wasn't as clear.

My interpritation is as follows.

The "Learn in Game" rule was removed, to allow new players to be able to go to the Wiki and know how to do something, and not have to ask on the forums and get shot down "Learn that in Game". I don't believe the Wiki is meant to be used for detailed internal information, just for a general guideline as to "what is what".

[Peanut]

I agree with Anthony on this matter.

People won't need the excact numbers.
Just a general guideline.

And it's so much more fun to find out specific information for yourselves.

[Jos Elkink]

The "Learn in Game" rule was removed, to allow new players to be able to go to the Wiki and know how to do something, and not have to ask on the forums and get shot down "Learn that in Game". I don't believe the Wiki is meant to be used for detailed internal information, just for a general guideline as to "what is what".

I think you are altering the rule as approved by the GAC and I'm not sure I agree. The rule now is that information about game mechanics can be public, while those about game history have to be found in game. Now you start to make distinctions between different kinds of mechanics. I don't see why it's fine to know by the gram precise how much you need to make steel, but not exactly which boat goes faster.

I agree that it is cool to find these things out in game, but few people appreciate that advantage, and it is hardly the core of the game. So, if people want to publish sailing details about ships, I don't see why we should alter that or interfere.

[Anthony Roberts]

Bah, you're not fun.

After vehicles are split into parts, THEN I'll give out numbers, because it'll be more "unbalanced" (That's the main reason I don't want them public now... it's so unbalanced, everyone with two brain cells will see which vehicle is the best for its cost.)

[Evelyn]

The "Learn in Game" rule was removed, to allow new players to be able to go to the Wiki and know how to do something, and not have to ask on the forums and get shot down "Learn that in Game". I don't believe the Wiki is meant to be used for detailed internal information, just for a general guideline as to "what is what".

I think you are altering the rule as approved by the GAC and I'm not sure I agree. The rule now is that information about game mechanics can be public, while those about game history have to be found in game. Now you start to make distinctions between different kinds of mechanics. I don't see why it's fine to know by the gram precise how much you need to make steel, but not exactly which boat goes faster.

I agree that it is cool to find these things out in game, but few people appreciate that advantage, and it is hardly the core of the game. So, if people want to publish sailing details about ships, I don't see why we should alter that or interfere.

Well done!

[Snake_byte]

The "Learn in Game" rule was removed, to allow new players to be able to go to the Wiki and know how to do something, and not have to ask on the forums and get shot down "Learn that in Game". I don't believe the Wiki is meant to be used for detailed internal information, just for a general guideline as to "what is what".

I think you are altering the rule as approved by the GAC and I'm not sure I agree. The rule now is that information about game mechanics can be public, while those about game history have to be found in game. Now you start to make distinctions between different kinds of mechanics. I don't see why it's fine to know by the gram precise how much you need to make steel, but not exactly which boat goes faster.

I agree that it is cool to find these things out in game, but few people appreciate that advantage, and it is hardly the core of the game. So, if people want to publish sailing details about ships, I don't see why we should alter that or interfere.

And how many Grams of a certain healing food it takes to recover 1%?

[olaf]

Thank you Jos - I feel this has been made abundantly clear now, yet there seems to remain some dissension. Oddly enough I don't really feel the need to have exact figures either, as I don't feel that is necessary as long as my characters can make informed decisions - the vague "this is more than that" will have to be quite specifically worded to achieve this...

After vehicles are split into parts, THEN I'll give out numbers, because it'll be more "unbalanced" (That's the main reason I don't want them public now... it's so unbalanced, everyone with two brain cells will see which vehicle is the best for its cost.)

So, it's better that our charries make stupid and uninformed decisions? Bearing in mind that they will likely be working towards these goals for a few years of their lives, and be stuck with them for many more? Especially if nobody else wants to trade for the white elephant vehicle they have created?

-------------------------------

Um, so what about the overall format of the wiki, then? I feel it's good to have some member of something, like Anthony, overseeing this, and so make it consistent, but I feel somehow that the current format is not as intuitively laid-out as I.d like.

Ok, here's an (almost) idea:
A picture (sometimes) being worth a 1000 words, it would feel that having an x-y plot style graph, showing the comparitave capacities and speeds (?) of various vehicles would enable one to make the comparison at a glance.

The reason it doesn't quite work is the whole passenger vs 60000g extra capacity thing wouldn't translate well onto a graph...

[formerly known as hf]

:idea: Ok, here's an (almost) idea:
A picture (sometimes) being worth a 1000 words, it would feel that having an x-y plot style graph, showing the comparitave capacities and speeds (?) of various vehicles would enable one to make the comparison at a glance.

The reason it doesn't quite work is the whole passenger vs 60000g extra capacity thing wouldn't translate well onto a graph...

I might give this a go at some point - no promises though...

[Jos Elkink]

Um, so what about the overall format of the wiki, then? I feel it's good to have some member of something, like Anthony, overseeing this, and so make it consistent, but I feel somehow that the current format is not as intuitively laid-out as I.d like.

I think the whole idea of a Wiki is that nobody is responsible / overseeing things ...

[olaf]

I think the whole idea of a Wiki is that nobody is responsible / overseeing things ...

Sure, I'd go with that. But the reality is that if you post something that somebody else doesn't like then they will change it back. Thus the reality is that somebody like Anthony will end up making it how he thinks it should be to fit in with his interpretation of the rules and aesthetics/layout.

Which I feel is an asset from the point of view of having a logical and consistent wiki, but maybe a liability if potentially better, yet conflicting, ideas are quashed.

This is not a slight on Anthony, who I am sure has the best of intentions. It's just one of the few limitations of the wiki system.

The solution I propose (which I know some people already do, as it's fairly obvious) is to be able to use the forums to discuss concerns about layout or content, so that the "agreed" result is implemented, and then hopefully not cancelled out by somebody else.

For example - I feel that having the speed/capacity explanations on separate pages, while being a modular layout, is not too intuitive - it's easy to miss that they even are links. And to compare vehicles involves multiple back-and-forward clicks.

A few graphs showing relative costs (maybe arrive at a vague single measurement factoring in times for resource gathering for the required amount, processing and manufacturing times), speeds and capacities would enable somebody to see very quickly what vehicle they are after for the task at hand.

I'd like to know what people think - I raised the problem of multiple passenger vehicles, and I'd be interested to see what hallucinatingfarmer MAY come up with.

But if he does put that effort in I also don't want it to be edited out by Anthony because he doesn't want people to see how unbalanced the vehicles are.