There's no denying that the wiki came out the gates at a gallop but very quickly slowed to a walk and for some time now has been wandering aimlessly round in circles. And ever since Bryan Derksen returned to active programming duty, over a year ago, there has been no one holding the reins let alone urging the wiki forward.
The Dragon Age Toolset Wiki Editors group which I created in October 2009 was intended assume responsibility for organising and improving the wiki. Unfortunately the group became mired in endless debate so I handed ownership over to Bryan and went off to do my own thing, namely LEX. Unfortunately over the next couple of months the group withered and died without ever achieving its raision d'etre.
2010 - 2011
Just over six months ago, recognising that the wiki was in dire straights, I contacted BioWare with a number of suggestions to improve the DA Builder's Wiki and the Dragon Age Toolset forums. While my suggestions were well received, with BioWare even asking for specific recommendations, DA2 was looming large on the horizon and BioWare, understandably, did not have any spare resources.
Unfortunately without BioWare's support we are very limited in what we can do with the wiki both in terms of our daily activities and our future plans. Sure we can create, edit and add pages but we cannot protect pages, edit protected pages, delete pages, etc. Moreover we cannot update the software, the configuration files or add new extensions.
As a result when the Dragon Age Friendly Toolset Initiative group reviewed the official toolset wiki, despite a desire to support it, the consensus was that the best option was to produce an alternative community-controlled wiki and we promptly began planning and developing one.
Fortunately, as it turned out, we didn't have to finish it ...
Recently
About five weeks ago, after renewed discussion, Chris Priestly and Fernando Melo agreed to move forward with my suggestions. There were two key elements a) to create a self-perpetuating group of Community Wiki Administrators; and
to establish a technical point of contact within BioWare.I'm delighted to say that as of last Thursday both elements are in place; that all but one of my requests had been approved; and that, hopefully, we will start to see the changes being implemented over the course of the next week or so. Obviously, there are no guarantees but that is current plan.
So what does all this mean for the community and for the wiki?
1. Community Wiki Administrators
The eagle-eyed among you may have already noticed that BioWare has appointed me as an Administrator on the wiki and I have been doing a little housekeeping over the last couple of weeks while BioWare and I hammered out the rest of the details.
More importantly I've also been given the ability to appoint other Community Wiki Administrators: so if you are willing to take on that responsibility please let me know. Ideally I feel there should be about six individuals with different areas of expertise who would be expected to act as caretakers, moderators, coordinators and leaders for the wiki. If/when individuals wants to step down or becomes inactive the can be replaced by another to ensure the group is kept a full strength.
My intension is to re-establish the Dragon Age Toolset Wiki Editors group to provide an open forum for those wishing to discuss the organisation, expansion and improvement of the wiki. Ideally the Community Wiki Administrators would be also officers in that group with their title reflecting their area(s) of expertise.
2. Changes/Improvements
If all the planned changes can be implemented the sort of improvements you an expect are:
- a more secure, more user-friendly and more attractive wiki
- faster, more reliable and expanded syntax highlighting for dascript code blocks
- improved image handling for thumbnails and galleries
- the ability to display video and play audio in the wiki
- dynamic content such as the newest or hottest articles
- improved structure and organisations with portals for resources
- more attractive tables which can be sorted and/or collapsed
- Wikipedia style navigation box templates
I would like to thank BioWare for placing their trust in our community members and I would like to thank the individuals within BioWare that assisted with this initiative.
Thanks!
Modifié par Sunjammer, 05 juin 2011 - 11:39 .
Retour en haut
