Outline Structure

I suggest we start a discussion here on a possible outline structure for a MERPwiki. It is a whole world we are dealing with, so a I believe a good struture is really necessary to avoid ending up in chaos. Furthermore, it would be really nice if especially those with English as their main language could jump in with suggestions on what words to use for the different sections.

What follows now is a suggestion of what could the main sections (of the different pages or entries) of the MERPwiki (I started using a version these categories in the old merp.com site):

1) Atlas/Gazetteer/The Land/Places

This would be the section for geographical places. Perhaps the word "Gazetteer" (although used in a publication in the Ice MERP series) is a bit obsolete? Nonetheless, Wikipedia says that "A gazetteer is a geographical dictionary or directory, an important reference for information about places and place names", which seems to be what I'm looking for. The word "Atlas", on the other hand, means "a collection of maps", according to Wikipedia.

2) Flora & Fauna/Bestiary/Olvar & Kelvar

3) Cultures/Races/Peoples

4) Characters/Figures of Note/Individuals

5) Items

6) Lore (e.g., Geography Lore, History Lore, Language Lore, etc.)

7) Reference (I'm thinking about RPG publications, non-middle-earth information, artists, etc.)

Something missing? What do you think?

It´s been some time that I´ve made my try on a MERP Wikia, widely ignored on the web...:

http://merp.wikia.com/wiki/Middle-earth_Role_Playing_Wiki

maybe we can learn from the mistakes I made...

please take a look!

What were some of the key things (mistakes) that you learned from Christian?

Morgan: Responses to your posting:

I fully agree we need to work out an outline and guideline, but also lets be careful not to get into analysis paralysis, let's focus on "Best effort".

1) Gazeteer seems perfect.

2)  a) Flora (should be separate from Fauna, to allow for all the herblore information)

2) b) Fauna (should be separate sections)

3) The Ea RPG book is Races & cultures. But probably just "Peoples" would be more Tolkienesque.

4) How about "Persona"  ("A person portrayed in fiction or drama") ?

5) Items (this should probably be subletted into separate categories such as "mundane" and "magical" or some such)

6) This seems somewhat redundant, could you give more specific examples how this would not fit under the previous categories, since basically the entire wiki IS a source of "lore".

7) This might be better addressed with a tie with the Catalogs section of the site maybe? Or maybe something complimentary but too duplicated?

Previously Merp.com Admin wrote:

What were some of the key things (mistakes) that you learned from Christian?

 for example too many sub-categories make it confusing.Another problem is to keep the original information separete from sources from for example Other Hands or internet sources... maybe we want to correct some mistakes from the MERP canon to bring things more in order with Tolkien´s legacy? Also... what do we do with the fan Modules or in general Information from the Decipher Books and other games in relaltion to Middle-Earth (ME the wizards for example or the lay-by.mail game...)

Morgan: Responses to your posting:

I fully agree we need to work out an outline and guideline, but also lets be careful not to get into analysis paralysis, let's focus on "Best effort".

1) Gazeteer seems perfect.

2)  a) Flora (should be separate from Fauna, to allow for all the herblore information)

2) b) Fauna (should be separate sections)

I called it Olvar and Kelvar to stay in line with Tolkien´s categorization (I guess olvar also includes Funghi... which are biologically not "Flora").

 

What to do with the beast-categories ICE invented... bats and birds, water beasts, Potili (insects and spiders), Rávatsar (amphibians and reptiles), Lassanakûni (leaf-eaters), riding and draft animals, apsanakûni (meat eaters)"

3) The Ea RPG book is Races & cultures. But probably just "Peoples" would be more Tolkienesque.

 

agreed. "the peoples of Middle-Earth".

4) How about "Persona"  ("A person portrayed in fiction or drama") ?

I used "Lords of Middle-Earth" in concordance with the MERP NPC books...

5) Items (this should probably be subletted into separate categories such as "mundane" and "magical" or some such)

6) This seems somewhat redundant, could you give more specific examples how this would not fit under the previous categories, since basically the entire wiki IS a source of "lore".

7) This might be better addressed with a tie with the Catalogs section of the site maybe? Or maybe something complimentary but too duplicated?

Previously Christian Haas wrote:

Previously Merp.com Admin wrote:

What were some of the key things (mistakes) that you learned from Christian?

 for example too many sub-categories make it confusing.Another problem is to keep the original information separete from fan-sources from for example Other Hands or internet sources... maybe we want to correct some mistakes from the MERP canon to bring things more in order with Tolkien´s legacy? Also... what do we do with the fan Modules or in general Information from the Decipher Books and other games in relaltion to Middle-Earth (ME the wizards for example or the lay-by.mail game...)

Morgan: Responses to your posting:

I fully agree we need to work out an outline and guideline, but also lets be careful not to get into analysis paralysis, let's focus on "Best effort".

1) Gazeteer seems perfect.

2)  a) Flora (should be separate from Fauna, to allow for all the herblore information)

2) b) Fauna (should be separate sections)

I called it Olvar and Kelvar to stay in line with Tolkien´s categorization (I guess olvar also includes Funghi... which are biologically not "Flora").

 

What to do with the beast-categories ICE invented... bats and birds, water beasts, Potili (insects and spiders), Rávatsar (amphibians and reptiles), Lassanakûni (leaf-eaters), riding and draft animals, apsanakûni (meat eaters)"

3) The Ea RPG book is Races & cultures. But probably just "Peoples" would be more Tolkienesque.

 

agreed. "the peoples of Middle-Earth".

4) How about "Persona"  ("A person portrayed in fiction or drama") ?

I used "Lords of Middle-Earth" in concordance with the MERP NPC books...

5) Items (this should probably be subletted into separate categories such as "mundane" and "magical" or some such)

maybe "artefacts"? I used "Treasures of Middle-Earth"

6) This seems somewhat redundant, could you give more specific examples how this would not fit under the previous categories, since basically the entire wiki IS a source of "lore".

7) This might be better addressed with a tie with the Catalogs section of the site maybe? Or maybe something complimentary but too duplicated?

 

A few weeks ago I started to try out the Mediawiki system on a my private server. (www.kingtape.se/realmsofarda)

I really like its functions, compared to Zwiki (sorry, Admin!).

I looked at Haas' wikipedia, and that project is very similar to mine.

 The problem is that Mediawiki doesn't have ANY integration with any other servers. So one has to create separate accounts, etc.

Zwiki integrates with the site. Of course, we brought this up before, and setup a mediawiki server here:

http://wiki.merp.com/index.php/Main_Page

When you tested, did you test with Zwiki 1.x, or the new 2.x? The 2.x has far more functionality than 1.x.

I understand the preference for Zwiki, but again, it causes a breakdown that we've been through before. We used to run the "Best of breed" for each category, forums, wiki, chat, website news, etc.

This became an administrative nightmare, but more importantly many, many, MANY users complained about having to use more than one login, it was the number one complaint for years. So we switched to a more integreated all-in-one approach. Though this means that some areas aren't as "optimal" as a "best in field" product, the balance has made for FAR fewer technical support contacts, and much easier for volunteers to help support because of the consistent tools and ways of performing functions.

We've been back and forth on this a lot on the Wiki issue. The key thing still is, have you tried the 2.x Zwiki or the ancient 1.x?

...what do we do with gamestats and book-quotes?

Will we be allowed to post stats?