Author Topic: Closing time? (Read 18294 times)

Yoshiken · « **Reply #100 on:** August 24, 2010, 11:16:00 AM »

I'd be fine with that, yeah. As it is, new bios are generally written now only as the character actually gets into the league, and not even all of those have been done, so it's not like we'd be changing much outside the standardised writeups this way.
Also, I don't remember this conversation about changing the site layout or anything, so yeah, fine with that.

And just as an aside, Djinn, the Tarot Cards list Noa being from Pokemon. ;p
Edit: And Arche from ToS. ;)

mia~ · « **Reply #101 on:** August 24, 2010, 02:53:49 PM »

Sup.

I'm not sure what the point of installing WordPress would be if all of your user-created content is going to be on the Wiki. Why not just turn the front page into a little portal?

Halbarad · « **Reply #102 on:** August 24, 2010, 11:38:59 PM »

Largely because a wiki is a rather poor idea for any kind of "officially endorsed" content, as there's no real editorial control on one. Stat pages being there is one thing, but I'd say anything else (reviews, patches, etc) would be better served up from a place where the content can be more closely controlled.

Taishyr · « **Reply #103 on:** August 25, 2010, 12:11:18 AM »

Also generally easier to centralize than a wiki - wikis are not exactly easy to focus, and that's what the main page should be doing, I think.

DjinnAndTonic · « **Reply #104 on:** August 25, 2010, 02:07:35 AM »

I would be fine with using WordPress for Game Patches and Reviews and such, I'm just a bit worried that people will get lazy and then never update their own pages. With the Wiki, I can do it for them. Especially for people that aren't HTML-savvy, or whatever system WordPress uses. (I guess that includes me if WordPress uses something weird, since I've never played with a WordPress system before.)

Honestly, I'd be fine with making WordPress pages for a Front Page, where we put updates, a site description, and major portal links (such as to the current Tournament pages and the Wiki); and for the Game Patches; and possibly for Reviews. More than that seems like more work than its worth? All the things I have linked to the current Features page on the Wiki ( http://rpgdl.com/wiki/index.php?title=Features ) could work as WordPress pages, but using the Wiki seems more user-friendly to me.

Also, if we put everything on the WordPress pages, then the only thing we're using the Wiki for is StatTopics, and then the Wiki will get ignored again, which seems incredibly counter-productive at this stage.

But these are just my initial impressions, perhaps with some more info on WordPress pages... or perhaps just getting a chance to play around the system if Hal can set something up... these impressions could change.

Hal, do you think you could set up a sample WordPress page for us to test some things and see how it would actually work in practice?

Halbarad · « **Reply #105 on:** August 25, 2010, 03:24:36 AM »

Quote from: DjinnAndTonic on August 25, 2010, 02:07:35 AM

Hal, do you think you could set up a sample WordPress page for us to test some things and see how it would actually work in practice?

They require setting aside a database (which is limited on this server); I'd rather not unless we absolutely have to.

WordPress uses a rich text editing system (very similar to the posting system with SMF, although with additional options for uploading images and other content), with direct HTML code editing capabilities for those that are comfortable enough with HTML to work in it directly. Best analogy I can make is that it's like writing in a web-based version of Word or other word processor of your choice.

I would recommend checking out some of the WordPress authoring tutorials for more details on exactly how the system works and what you can do with it - it is definitely very extensively documented.

DjinnAndTonic · « **Reply #106 on:** August 25, 2010, 03:50:20 AM »

Alright. I read the introductory tutorials and the system seems simple enough, but I'm not sure on some of the more technical details, such as "how does one access the WordPress CMS once Hal has implemented it on the rpgdl server?"

Apart from that, actually working within the program is well-documented and easy-to-follow, though we still don't have a good web designer. My banners and backgrounds are pretty terrible, even if I do all the rest of the setup work.

As for how I would set up the site if we were to use this?

Front Page: Intro text and updates. Portal to the rest of the main content pages.

Main Content Pages
-RPGDL Wiki - Just a link/graphic to what we have now.
-Game Patches - A WordPress page that would probably look really similar to this: http://rpgdl.com/wiki/index.php?title=Game_Patches
-RPGDL Main Tournament - just a link rpgdl.com as it is now.
-RPGDL Articles - A WordPress page that would house Reviews, Niu's Corner, probably really similar to this: http://rpgdl.com/wiki/index.php?title=RPG_Reviews ...and this: http://rpgdl.com/wiki/index.php?title=Niu%27s_RPG_Corner

Does this seem acceptable? If so, then let's set it up ASAP!

SnowFire · « **Reply #107 on:** August 25, 2010, 05:30:02 AM »

So to be clear, is the proposal to transition into standardized writeups right next season? Honestly, I suspect that standardized writeups pretty well signals the official into-the-sunset period of the DL tourney. I have no problem with keeping the tourney machinery around to do this, though I'm somewhat surprised by suggestions to also de-emphasize / hide the links to the tourney if we're going to keep it going (albeit in low-maintenance mode).

It's probably too late now, but I'm still in favor of trying to have one last high note in a specially selected "final" season, or, if the tourney continues in standardized writeup form, an "event" season at least. Storylines could be made and normal writeups would be done for that season (and yes this means that I'm volunteering for writeup work if we do this). Close out with a bang, and then for those who want to keep at it, the tourney can go into standardized writeup mode after that. Just... if it goes into standardized writeup mode right away, then it really does feel like the DL will be going out with a whimper. Hold one last party, first.

DjinnAndTonic · « **Reply #108 on:** August 25, 2010, 05:34:22 AM »

I personally want to start standardized writeups immediately. Since that would mean the DL isn't closing, then I don't see a reason for a 'wrap-up' Season.

I wouldn't mind an event season like a 2-on-2 duels season, or even just a hand-picked Season! But I'd just as soon use standardized writeups even for those things.

Talaysen · « **Reply #109 on:** August 25, 2010, 06:03:48 AM »

The way I understood it, if we did WordPress, we would essentially make a post for /every/ patch, review, whatever, and just tag them with the proper tag. Reviews would have the "review" tag, etc. Then someone looking for reviews can just look for posts with the "review" tag. This is better than having a page because a page would not be auto-updated, so someone would have to manually add in every review when it's posted.

Patches we may need a page for since they're going to be uploaded somewhere? I'm not sure how that works. We probably won't be adding many patches anyway, so a separate page would work fine there regardless.

I would suggest archiving this stuff on the wiki anyway. The wiki has "Categories" which will also let you view all pages in a category (similar to WP tags).

I haven't actually used WP, so just going by what I've seen, but I think this is the common way to do stuff like this?

---

If we're keeping the tournament, no reason to do a special season. I never really thought it was a great idea anyway. Seems like a lot of effort for little gain.

We should probably start standardized writeups next season though, yes.

Djinn: 2v2 season would require recoding the site for one season. Not happening.

mia~ · « **Reply #110 on:** August 25, 2010, 10:27:51 AM »

Quote from: Halbarad on August 24, 2010, 11:38:59 PM

Largely because a wiki is a rather poor idea for any kind of "officially endorsed" content, as there's no real editorial control on one. Stat pages being there is one thing, but I'd say anything else (reviews, patches, etc) would be better served up from a place where the content can be more closely controlled.

┐( ¯∀¯ )┌
The reason why I asked why you're gonna install wordpress is cause you seem to have everything you'd use the wordpress for covered by the forums and wiki. IE: Reviews are on the forums.
Though the wordpress format is more "comment friendly"?
If you're gonna move everything, I guess it's a bit different!

Wordpress stuff:
- I suggest you register a free one on wordpress.com to screw around with. The free ones are limited in function/plugins/theme editing compared to your own install.
- Each person can have their own account. The master/first admin (presumably Hal) can promote you to have editor/admin/etc status. There's an admin panel you login to.
- There is both category and tagging. Apparently category is supposed to be broad, and tagging is supposed to be more specific. Each "post" requires a category. So maybe like, "Review" would be a category, and the game the review is about would be a tag?
- "Posts" = ...uh, like a news article.
- "Pages" = I seriously have no clue how to explain the different between posts and pages to people who haven't used wordpress. A page is a static page and it doesn't get posted to the main page like a post would.
- You can pick a theme to use, so you don't need to worry about having someone to do web design. Wordpress' theme page. The most recent versions of wordpress have this theme as the default.

DjinnAndTonic · « **Reply #111 on:** August 25, 2010, 12:41:08 PM »

Okay, I tried playing around with WordPress features.

I think we can do this easily enough.

The Menu items I went with were:

About, Game Patches, Wiki, Forums, Tournament, Reviews

About would be an FAQ, I suppose.

Game Patches would lead to a static Page, which would link to more static Pages for each patch. Patch creators would get access to their own patch Pages to edit freely. Presumably they could upload new versions of their Patch at any point, too?

Wiki would link to the DL Wiki mainpage as is.

Forums would link to the mainpage of the DL Forums as is.

Tournament would link to the front page of the main tournament and people can navigate it from there.

Reviews would pull up a list of all the Posts that are filed with the "Reviews" category.

Pretty much all "Posts" would be Reviews or Updates.

Bare-bones results of me playing around with Word-Press for 20 minutes so you can get an idea of how I would organize this:
http://djinntotonic.wordpress.com/

Halbarad · « **Reply #112 on:** August 25, 2010, 01:52:29 PM »

Quote from: Schneizel on August 25, 2010, 10:27:51 AM

┐( ¯∀¯ )┌
The reason why I asked why you're gonna install wordpress is cause you seem to have everything you'd use the wordpress for covered by the forums and wiki. IE: Reviews are on the forums.
Though the wordpress format is more "comment friendly"?
If you're gonna move everything, I guess it's a bit different!

Mainly because the two existing systems cover things differently. The wiki can centralize and document information well, but it's very poorly organized for casual browsing - unless you know exactly what you're looking for and search, you end up on an aimless wiki walk through a twisty maze of links, all alike. And if the information isn't centralized very well (i.e., data spread out across a dozen pages for a single topic) people will get bored with that rather quickly and move on. It's also hard to discuss things on the wiki - while it has discussion pages for each article, they require an additional click to reach and generally don't contain a lot of valuable information unless you enjoy following wikipedian squabbles. >_>

The forum, on the other hand, organizes things very easily - it's quick and easy to find the category you're looking for, and of course discussion is awesome on forums. The downside is that the information isn't centralized - if you're looking at a topic, all of the valuable information is not necessarily going to be contained in the first post. It -can- be with rigorous first-post standards (like any topic in Reviews requiring the first post to consist of the review in its entirety), but aside from active moderation there's nothing that's actually going to force that into place - and from a visual standpoint, most people are going to give most of the posts in a topic equal weight, since there's nothing to distinguish the initial post other than the fact that it's first.

A blog system resolves both of these issues. While discussion still appears on the main post, it's given a lesser weight visually, and by design all of the important information is going to be contained in the body of the post itself. It also doesn't overwhelm the reader initially (since you're usually going to post just a synopsis on the main page of the side with the body of the article as a clickthrough).

Short version: Yes, we could do everything we want between forums and wiki, but it would be messy and ugly at best. >_>

Taishyr · « **Reply #113 on:** August 25, 2010, 05:25:56 PM »

What Hal said, yeah. And neither quite centralizes as well as a blog does, at least IMO.

Djinn: I know Hal told you to cut long posts via More, so outside of that it looks pretty decent!

Dhyerwolf · « **Reply #114 on:** August 25, 2010, 07:48:09 PM »

Reviews? Definitely should be a minor category (I say this because...unless you do something different, reviews are something that essentially every website ever has. It doesn't have a place on a main toolbar!)

Cmdr_King · « **Reply #115 on:** August 25, 2010, 08:08:00 PM »

Eh. We're better writers than those other places, and are going to be more focused on what makes a good RPG, not what RPGs fail to do compared to Halo. Besides, it's relatively quick content to generate, meaning we can actually get SOMETHING new up at a decent pace. That is, basically appetizers for more substantive content (which we might get one a month of if we're lucky)

Dhyerwolf · « **Reply #116 on:** August 26, 2010, 08:31:24 AM »

What makes a good RPG varies a lot person to person! I don't read many RPG reviews granted, but does Gamefaqs/magazines/videogames.com/rpgfan/rpgamer...etc really spend a lot of time comparing RPGs to Halo. Niu's info posts should definitely have their own header more than reviews should!

Cmdr_King · « **Reply #117 on:** August 26, 2010, 09:13:03 AM »

Professional reviewers take it as fact that turn based RPGs are an artifact of limited technology that have no place in the modern age. So yes, they're comparing RPGs to straight up action games. The RPG sites I honestly haven't read in years, because I found all of their writers singularly worthless. The thing about reviews is that you aren't trying to find some objective truth, you're looking for someone whose opinions jive with yours, whose comments and opinions make sense to you as a player. And given the popular perception of the genre these days, I feel confident saying DL members can provide that better than a lot of other review sources for the RPG fans still out there.

But honestly the fact that reviews are common isn't the important thing. The important point is the frequency of content. Niu hasn't made a new fact center in over a year, and ultimately is just one person; he can't realistically do more than one every couple months. We could put up a review every week without breaking a sweat. We don't want it to become the main focus of the site, no, but we do need to update more often than once a month, so having a mix of simple, ready made content to go with more advanced stuff like LPs or Niu's work is a must.

Dhyerwolf · « **Reply #118 on:** August 26, 2010, 09:23:08 AM »

If RPG reviews were trying to find an objective truth, I would imagine straight up reviews might draw in more people! Reviews just strike me as frequency of content for frequency of content's sake (Which...is more what we are trying to avoid. I admit that I really rather highlight the many, many things the DL has that you can't find somewhere else. Not saying no reviews, but I just don't think they are something that should be a major header. Maybe under...writing endeavors. Something of that name that can escapulate other things).

I believe Niu's fact center was somewhat limited by the fact that we never actually had a way to put them up.

Cmdr_King · « **Reply #119 on:** August 26, 2010, 09:33:48 AM »

I'm pretty sure the issue people are having with keeping the DL going three fold. a) we've been doing it and nothing else for 6 years b) less and less people care and c) two or three dedicated people can't do all the writing a DL week takes every week. While we do want to mix up our content, it still needs to be steadier than just a couple times a month, and unlike the DL two or three people CAN put out a review every week, in addition to people working on more ambitious projects.

Put another way, I feel fairly confident saying that the most common content going up on the site would be reviews (simply because it takes less work to write a review than to build a stat topic, write boss notes, do a Niu's corner, make an LP, write an Abridged Game, or create a game patch), so burying them away in a subheading of a subheading is silly and a bit insulting.

DjinnAndTonic · « **Reply #120 on:** August 26, 2010, 09:35:22 AM »

So give them both equal exposure.

Articles button for Niu's Corner (and other related non-review writing pieces, as few as they are)

and Reviews button for RPG reviews.

They're probably the only things besides the Game Patches that are even going to be on the new site.

Everything else is best done on the Wiki.

OblivionKnight · « **Reply #121 on:** August 26, 2010, 04:53:38 PM »

I think they should be called Written Content or whatever, something other than just Reviews (the Top 11 RPGs to Play is...more under that, and I think we need to do writing other than reviews to keep it interesting - I have ideas, and hopefully I'm not the only one) - just some writing or editorial commentary is good.

Talaysen · « **Reply #122 on:** August 26, 2010, 07:51:36 PM »

"Articles" is probably a better header.

Don't really see a problem with "Reviews" being a subheader of this, as is "Niu's Fact Center". Just make them fairly easy to get to. Having them tagged properly would probably be enough.

DjinnAndTonic · « **Reply #123 on:** August 31, 2010, 02:12:24 AM »

Okay, so tomorrow is Sept 1st.

I don't suppose Hal is ready to fire the WP pages yet?

Once the setup is in place, I can create all the pages and links we'd need, I'm guessing?

Or is there a different method for how we're actually organizing this stuff?

Halbarad · « **Reply #124 on:** August 31, 2010, 03:14:06 PM »

Uh. Not just no, but hell no. From talking to Tai I've got a deadline of the first weekend in October; I might have it done before then but don't count on it. I'm going to try to get the wiki upgrades done this weekend, but I wouldn't expect to see the WP installation up for at least another couple of weeks.

News:

Author Topic: Closing time? (Read 18294 times)

Taishyr

Taishyr