I know lots of GMs who get creative with their Threads - but has the idea of an in-game wiki feature ever been considered?

*Using Player/GM field to set permission for GM-Only Wiki and Players-Wiki
*Option for approval before publish
*Option for version control + history

Using existing php based system? Lo-fi would be better than none...

It's been suggested, several times, but was turned down because, among other things, it would require major changes to the way the site is coded.  RPoL is simply not designed to function like a wiki.

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And now to reverse that decision, a trial wiki is coming with the next version.

Haven't figured out where to link to it from within a game, but will figure something I'm sure!

hahaha! AWeSoME! Nice work Jase! ^_^

I've been playing around with the wiki as a player with a DM in a game I play in, and we've both noticed that the initial security settings are too strict.  It makes sense for the GM to need to lock down pages so that only certain people could read or modify them, but initially a page ought to be open to all players to edit.

Under the current setup, any time I want to expand the wiki, I need to request the DM to create a bunch of pages.  Once those pages are created, I could begin editing, but if I saw the need for more pages, more requests to the DM would be necessary.  I can see this getting out of hand when multiple players are doing this.  It seems administratively unnecessary, or at least should be a behavior that the DM could unlock.

It makes more sense to me to allow players to edit to their hearts content, and allow the DM to prune articles or lock them down as needed.

In reply to Mortuis (msg # 5):

I'm not sure every GM would agree that it's too strict.

You have to be a game editor or GM to create articles.  GMs can then change the permissions on who can edit.

I suppose it depends on how one uses a wiki.  Would it be possible for the GM to be able to set a default permission level?  For myself I wouldn't want to have to create every page that players wanted to flesh out.  I'd much rather allow people to make what they want and then have the ability to lock entries down as needed.

Possible, yes, but unlikely at this moment at time; it'll at another layer of complexity onto the whole thing.  If there's a large outcry for it then I'll of course reconsider it.

Two other points;

Do you really want any player to be able to create any page?  To me this is inviting a mess of unorganised and orphaned pages.

If you trust them enough to edit the game wiki then you should trust them enough to be an editor in the game.  You don't even have to give them a real group to be an editor of, make it group Z (pretty sure you can do that) - editors can't edit GM posts, and only GMs can post to group Z.

Well, just to state my assumptions, I'm looking at the wiki as both a player and a DM as primarily a player tool.  As a player, I keep notes of the game in my scratchpad as the game goes on.  The wiki style makes it easier to keep this information organized.  Meet an NPC? Make a wiki page.  Hear of a location, make a wiki page.  Add information on these pages as I come across it.  In this case, the wiki serves as a collection of what the players think they know.

Under this model of use, only allowing GM's to make wiki pages is cumbersome.  Meet an NPC? Create a link on the NPC list page, ask the GM to create the page for the NPC, wait for the GM to do this, then populate the page.

I'm hoping it's obvious at this point why the one doesn't necessarily lead to the other.  It's one thing to have a player in the game who can record information in a wiki.  It's another thing to give them the ability to edit posts in the game itself.


It strikes me that perhaps you see a different purpose to having a game wiki than I do.  Could you define what you feel a wiki's role in an rpol game should be?  Because I am really having a difficult time imagining what kind of use case would prohibit players from creating new articles, and only allowing them to edit articles that you have explicitly defined.  So maybe I'm just looking at this from a completely different direction from you.

Mortuis: Could the GM not create a 'NPCs' page, where players then edit information about the various NPCs? Or perhaps a 'Locations' page with the same effect?

Jase: Will there be any brief documentation to go with the wiki? As to how it works and FAQ?

I'd organize NPC's into a master list on one page, but each NPC would have it's own page with the information about it.  Then when the NPC is referenced elsewhere (such as in the article on the cult it's a part of, or the town it's active in, etc) you can link to that NPC directly.

There are certainly ways to work around limited functionality, you could flesh out each NPC on the list page until the GM gets around to making a page for each NPC who's entry is growing enough to make it worth his/her time.  But I'm trying to make the case that it's worth allowing the players in your game to build the wiki without you giving permission at each new page.

jase: I understand that coding allowing players to do this could get time consuming and there might be more important pulls on your time.  I'm just saying that as someone who is enthusiastic about a wiki service where access could be handled by a players access to the game, this is what I would like it to do.  If I'm alone in this desire and everyone else is happy with how it is, then I'll continue to use other wiki solutions (Obsidian Portal, etc) that handle the permissions the way I want.  If you're against it because you perceive it as a negative for the rpol wiki to have the capability to work like any other wiki, then I'm just having trouble understanding that POV.

Regardless, I really dig the direction rpol has been going, even if it isn't always as far as I'd like in certain features. :-)

Bear in mind that, as with any other game content, the GM would be entirely responsible for anything posted in their game's wiki.

Personally, I'd prefer players to be editing GM provided pages, rather than having half a dozen players all decide we need a page about the new NPC/location and deciding to create one, each.

Plus, the functionality would be similar to that of the rest of the game, where players can post to a thread, but only the GM can create it.

This is a good argument for a GM wanting to limit the creation of pages.  I can understand the decision based on this.

Yeah, but once a thread is defined players can add their own posts themselves, rather than having the GM create each post for them which they are then allowed to modify.

CYA-motivated bureaucratic reasoning aside (which, again, is valid reasoning. I work in government, I understand this ;-) I guess it all comes down to what it is you're hoping to get out of a wiki.

Think of the whole thread as a wiki page - players can edit it (eg: add content), but they can't start a new thread.  Similar functionality, as I said.

Mortuis - sounds like you're after a player wiki, not a game wiki.  Bit of a differnce in expectations and thus required functionality.

ashberg - Already is a bit of documentation, great thing about a wiki is anyone can add/edit a page (outside of each game-specific section).