Website, promoting MC, youTube videos etc

[admin]

Martial Challenge is open to everyone.

[admin]

That looks like an interesting start - is it possible to limit the editors to just a few people?

[Sylvan C]

is it possible to limit the editors to just a few people?

Nooooooooo!!!!! (that's in slow motion, with me running away from a surprisingly slow fireball).

The whole point of a wiki is to leave it open for anyone and everyone to edit. Since every edit can be 'rolled back', there's no way for anybody to do any harm, and the result is real community involvement. In Information Design parlance it's called 'emergent information design', but there are other analogies as well: bottom-up vs. top-down, decentralised vs. centralised, free market vs. central planning.

The worry with a wiki isn't 'how do we limit participation?' but rather 'how do we foster participation?'. My worry is that so far we've only had one other editor (Mike) and he just poked at something and then rolled it back.

[Corpsie]

is it possible to limit the editors to just a few people?

Nooooooooo!!!!! (that's in slow motion, with me running away from a surprisingly slow fireball).

The whole point of a wiki is to leave it open for anyone and everyone to edit. Since every edit can be 'rolled back', there's no way for anybody to do any harm, and the result is real community involvement. In Information Design parlance it's called 'emergent information design', but there are other analogies as well: bottom-up vs. top-down, decentralised vs. centralised, free market vs. central planning.

The worry with a wiki isn't 'how do we limit participation?' but rather 'how do we foster participation?'. My worry is that so far we've only had one other editor (Mike) and he just poked at something and then rolled it back.

That may be the point of a Wiki, but we need to control it a little. Having it so open is too much. If you look at the specs people are coming up with, it's almost a social networking site rather than a wiki. People can affect their own pages, create 'events' (challenges) and set up leagues.

FaceStab, if you wish.

[Sylvan C]

No offence, but that is really, really, really not the problem. In engineering terms, that's what's called 'a nice problem to have': if we ever had so many users editing the Martial Challenge wiki that a permissions system was needed (and note that Wikipedia, with millions of users, still doesn't have this problem), we could afford to have a custom website coded from the ad revenue alone. That's not the case. Instead what we have is a simple system that needs to encourage participation rather than impose arbitrary barriers to entry (and worse yet, single points of failure: in this case, someone that no longer has time to give other people editing permissions).

Don't get distracted by feeling like you need to control it. Every single company I've helped through this process has had that reaction - those that have gotten past it and allowed emergent design to work have flourished. Those that haven't have ended up with dead projects. Simple as that.

As for social networking, if you think that's a better model, set up a Ning site and see how it works. My suspicion is that the real emphasis of Martial Challenge is on the fights, not the fighters, and so a social networking site (which relies on every user logging in regularly and updating things, and has no ability to create pages for fights, etc) isn't the right approach. But I am NOT a Martial Challenge expert! If you think Ning would be better, start experimenting.

Of course, I'd rather see you add all your pending and completed challenges to the wiki instead, heheheh...

[Corpsie]

Nah, you've got a point. I've not played with a wiki before and it seems a bit more sensible than I was expecting.

A couple of style guides might be useful though- not just the key one. Is their any way to code a template for a category. You could select a fight template that would get the headers automatically entered?

[TheDude]

A few formal, premade style guides or template pages would be very helpful to maintain standard fighter and challenge pages.

[Sylvan C]

A couple of style guides might be useful though

Definitely! So... I suggest you start writing them, hehehe.

I liked your 'weapons' category so much, I added it to the main menu. I think it might be best to make weapon pages 'category' pages, though. That way, the description of the weapon is there (by editing the category page) and it also automatically links to any fights tagged with that weapon. Check out the way I did 'sword and buckler'.

Is their any way to code a template for a category. You could select a fight template that would get the headers automatically entered?

Yes, you can absolutely do that. I suggest you start spelunking the help pages for templates and make one, hehehe.

EDIT: btw, Michael, I changed the 'Last Name, First Name' format you used to 'First Last', but I left redirect pages in place, so that either works. I don't have a particularly good reason for having done it, other than 'that's how wikipedia handles names'.

[Corpsie]

Yes, you can absolutely do that. I suggest you start spelunking the help pages for templates and make one, hehehe.

You have no idea how much time I've got on my hands right now, and I don't think I'd get away with reading the Bartitsu book.

[Sylvan C]

You have no idea how much time I've got on my hands right now, and I don't think I'd get away with reading the Bartitsu book.

Huzzah! Even with just three contributors, things are already taking shape. Just a question of suckering more people in now...

[Paul B]

I have an access database of all challenges if you would like it, just pm me your email address

[Corpsie]

This is irritating.

I've got the basic layout of the template and I can't find the damn code to demonstrate which parts are able to be edited by the user. I've got it saved as a template- but hey, what do you know, the entire template cannot be edited.

I'm Beta/UA Tester, not a programmer.

[Sylvan C]

Paul: no chance in hell, hehehe. Collaborative editing means you get to put those challenges on the wiki.

Corpsie: this might help, but you may already have read it.

http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Templates

On the 'weapons' category, you added 'weapons' to the 'longsword' category. I think what you wanted to do was add 'longsword' to the 'weapons' category.

[Corpsie]

Paul: no chance in hell, hehehe. Collaborative editing means you get to put those challenges on the wiki.

Corpsie: this might help, but you may already have read it.

http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Templates

On the 'weapons' category, you added 'weapons' to the 'longsword' category. I think what you wanted to do was add 'longsword' to the 'weapons' category.

Yeah, I've read that. It's about as useful as a chocolate teapot- I'm now looking off site.

I didn't add the longsword page, although I've edited it to include what we fight with now.

[Paul B]

Paul: no chance in hell, hehehe. Collaborative editing means you get to put those challenges on the wiki.

Corpsie: this might help, but you may already have read it.

http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Templates

On the 'weapons' category, you added 'weapons' to the 'longsword' category. I think what you wanted to do was add 'longsword' to the 'weapons' category.

Nope. Just spent half an hour editing only to loose it all because someone else was editing the same page.

I honestly don't have the time to put the detail in, as it requires trawling back through the forum and messing about with HTML, which gives me the fear. Once in a while, or adding a bit here and there? yes. Doing every martial challenge? no.

[Sylvan C]

Just spent half an hour editing only to loose it all because someone else was editing the same page.

Ouch! Which page? I might be able to recover it for you.

I honestly don't have the time to put the detail in, as it requires trawling back through the forum and messing about with HTML, which gives me the fear. Once in a while, or adding a bit here and there? yes. Doing every martial challenge? no.

Absolutely! You've got the right idea: people should enter their own challenges, to spread the workload.

[Motley]

is there any way to automate some of process of issuing/accepting n a challenge?

[Corpsie]

Not by the look of it. You'll just have to use the talk pages.

Holy crap, this template stuff is poorly thought out. It seems to embed the whole template without allowing you to edit it:

You can either {{subst:Challenge}}, then save it, and edit the bits or lump it by appearances.

The help file's slightly less confusing than the Swedish manual I had thrown at me as part of some release notes.

[Sylvan C]

I used {{subst:Challenge}} and it was quite helpful. I suspect what you want to do has something to do with template parameters, but I'm not really sure.

[Corpsie]

I used {{subst:Challenge}} and it was quite helpful. I suspect what you want to do has something to do with template parameters, but I'm not really sure.

I think it requires me to add {{1}} {{2}} etc in it, then a call of {{Challenge|wordybit 1|wordy bit 2}} and so on which is, basically pants for the user.

Still, if the subst:TEMPLATE works, it's not how I'd like it for my users, but so be it.