GD.ie wiki + some other site suggestions

[Jamie Mc]

Hi Aphra, guys

Can I open a thread about getting a GameDevelopers.ie wiki set up? Not a publically editable one, but a moderated one.

I’ve a bit more time now that Dragonica is out, and I think it would be good to organise a lot of the information buried inside the forums, and I figure if a few of us pick a topic to be editors of, and throw everything else into a random folder to work through later, by the end of the year we’ll have a really good resource for

a) those entrepreneurial members of the irish game development community to get access to good advice, and links to relevant contacts, sources etc.

b) give those already operating in the irish games industry (and this should cover development, colleges, indie, publishing, editorial and retail) a channel to get their information to the irish and international media

c) give those of us looking for staff a place we can post job information

d) give individuals and groups a space to present a portfolio of their work/achievements and their cv (if they are looking for work)

e) provide an interface between universities and industry to help get the courses right

f) provide a place for information relevant to students to trusted sources of information that they might be unaware of (ie gamasutra, develop etc), which can include links to articles, pdf’s, websites, podcasts, videos and pretty much whatever.

g) provide an archive of all irish games industry news for posterity. It could also provide a place to put online lectures, or links to streams of any talks/events we do in the future.

I know I can dedicate a good few hours to it, and I figure a couple of the other heads on the forum will have a couple of hours to spare some evening to do it, and after six years of the forums and the site, we should be looking forward to a much more organised situation for the 7th birthday in 2010.

At my count writing this, there are 4538 threads, and 39607 posts. It’ll take a while, but is anyone else up for it, and gd.ie team, is it much work to get a wiki installed on a wiki.gamedevelopers.ie subdomain, and then sort out the display scheme so it keeps the look and feel of the site?

Also, another suggestion I have is for RSS feeds. I use them all the time, and it would handy in work to have feeds for news, forum of my choice or combination of a selection, jobs and the event calendar? Maybe for people looking for work would be handy too, especially if you could break it down by general job type.

That’s my two cents. It was great to see so many people at the Game 2.0 event and we all want the industry to keep growing here across Ireland, so maybe these suggestions, and any other that people want to get say could be considered?

Thanks

Jamie

[Anonymous]

I think its a good idea but I’d roll back the scope a bit for fear of aversely affecting the main forums.

a) Leave the advice in the forums where it more easily responded to, but certainly compile lists of public contact information for relevant bodies.

b) I think the existing news section and the forums themselves already address this issue. The list of Irish developers could certainly find a place in a wiki though.

c) Jobs section and forums definitely cover this. Also job postings are temporary and would look out of place in a wiki as wikis should be collective works IMHO

d) Also already a part of the forums. Wiki pages are and I feel should be publicly editable so again I don’t think this kind of content belongs in a wiki.

e) Thats a debate that needs to be on going, and I think if its to happen online it should happen in the forums for purposes of clearer dialogue. But the resources to support that debate and the courses/institutions involved would work well in a wiki.

f) perfect

g) I think the forum already archives its own content, including the news section, but yes the other materials mentioned could find a place in a wiki.

I think a wiki would make a good addition to the site but it doesn’t need to do everything or overlap extensively with the existing features. gd.ie is a relaxed and informal environment so I’m not sure if it would benefit by moving from bulletin board type communication to a wiki community set up.

So yeah, wiki as support resource to the site = good idea. But the site ain’t broke so lets not go tearing up the foundations just yet.

[Anonymous]

Some nice ideas in there Jamie – I agree with Nifty’s run-through of it too. :)

Will have a chat with Skyclad about this and related issues and see if I can’t twist his arm to do some real work for a change :)

Gonna pay for that one!

Cheers,
Ian

[Aphra K]

Dave, I said nothing, honest…

I will respond to Jamie’s mail later when I see what others think

aphra.

[Anonymous]

*gulp*

Dave

[Anonymous]

While we’re discussing the topic of changes anyway, how about a more user-orientated article/journal system, or blog, where people can write little technical or descriptive articles that might be of use to other people. This could of course work on a wiki as well with the added advantage of user collaboration.

[Anonymous]

Kentaree

It would be deadly (IMO) to see some form of group project(s) being developed by the locals through this site. It could start off as (very) small iphone apps, games, XNA titles, etc.

Of course, then you’ve got the problems of scheduling, managing, managing assets. Maybe (just maybe) its a bridge too far, or its better suited for google code’s existing infrastructure.

Just a thought, GD.ie "summer of code" on an Irish game dev scale.

B.

[Anonymous]

The main problem with such user generated types of content is people lose interest in them after about a month, and they end up making a site worse rather than better.

Dave

[Anonymous]

It would be deadly (IMO) to see some form of group project(s) being developed by the locals through this site. It could start off as (very) small iphone apps, games, XNA titles, etc. [/quote:5948d2e524]
I agree it would be cool to get people working together on something small. I know I would be tempted to contribute to a project if the team around it was good. But then how do you know the team would be good?

I think the best way to enable teaming up is for a renewed push to get the Profiles section up to date with portfolio links and freelance rates / availability for project work / work the hell of it projects. So that people with ideas for projects can see who could fit in a team and approach them.
Perhaps add settable flags to user preferences that would appear in Profiles section and mass mail all members to suggest creating / updating profile.

[Jamie Mc]

[Anonymous]

a) http://www.gamedevelopers.ie/forums/search.php

b) Yes it does need to be updated regularly. I don’t see why the current setup would need to be changed radically.

c) Look at http://www.gamedevelopers.ie/jobs/viewjob.php?article=180
as an example, it seems to me that all the information you’re looking for could be included in that format if the recruiter wished it to be.

The live/closed functionality is handled by the mods/admins.

The profiles section allows you to post the body of your cv if you wish and links if you don’t. Are you suggesting that GD.ie should be paying for the extra strorage to host people’s portfolios?

d) I’m not going to take the 5 minutes comment literally, but setting a wiki up is not a trivial task. Beyond the technical concerns there’s the organisation required to drive the user base to generate the content to make it a worthwhile feature, and not whimper out of existance shortly after launch.

e) Search functionality covers this

g) see (a)

[Anonymous]

Making the search visible would probably solve a lot of issues and new posts of things already covered (like all the education-related posts)

[Aphra K]

Thanks to everyone for the comments.

1. yes the companies database needs updating. There appears to be a problem here with the update form that needs looking into. while we can list companies it is better than companies input their own data. We may not categorise a company correctly etc…

2. We can look at the jobs section/layout. Yes it is a way we could generate extra income but at the moment we are ok for funding. A form for direct input would be useful. No company has ever complained about their logos not being displayed to date.

3. Re profiles. I prefer to keep this simple and not to be hosting portfolios. Linking to personal websites is cleaner. It also puts the onus on the profilee to keep things up to date.

4. I think we could replace my book pic with a FAQ section or other information.

5. A wiki could be useful alright if we designate separate moderators. However, a FAQ might do the same job?

6. we will take anyone up on providing help and time. This is a volunteer effort but like everything really relies on just a couple of people mostly. Pm me if you do want to help out. Jamie, you are on the list!

Aphra.

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