Does Community Content Belong on the Wiki?

[RightBigToe]

So again, my idea was never to include a list of every organization or space ship a player makes, that'd be assine.  My idea was that key aspects of player-created content, such as major organizations, deserve to have a page on the wiki because it's content players in general are interested in a neutral viewpoint of.

 

It doesn't make any sense to me to exclude things just be because they aren't created by NQ because the vast majority of the game won't be created by NQ.

 

A fair compromise as is mentioned above is to say only more abstract player creations like major cities, landmarks, and such would have pages on the wiki.  Explicit player creations such as organizations, ships, and players themselves can be linked back to the community page, where appropriate.

 

I still think that it is an appropriate location for a neutral description of major organizations, but agree it would not be simple to maintain.

[Cybrex]

3 minutes ago, RightBigToe said:

So again, my idea was never to include a list of every organization or space ship a player makes, that'd be assine.  My idea was that key aspects of player-created content, such as major organizations, deserve to have a page on the wiki because it's content players in general are interested in a neutral viewpoint of.

 

It doesn't make any sense to me to exclude things just be because they aren't created by NQ because the vast majority of the game won't be created by NQ.

 

A fair compromise as is mentioned above is to say only more abstract player creations like major cities, landmarks, and such would have pages on the wiki.  Explicit player creations such as organizations, ships, and players themselves can be linked back to the community page, where appropriate.

 

I still think that it is an appropriate location for a neutral description of major organizations, but agree it would not be simple to maintain.

 

I think this is a good compromise, think many in this thread are misunderstanding one another. 

 

Now, if we were to include major orgs on the wiki, what criteria needs to be met to be included? I'm not for or against this, just want to raise some questions. 

[ATMLVE]

There's a lot of discussion here, I like it. Several people agree with me l, but are saying that some player made content belongs if it is influential. Thank you all that have shared your opinion. 

 

I will say I am even more "radical" than most that agree with me; I'm against all player made content entirely, if it can change. If it is an organization or city, it can change, so it doesn't belong. Sure game content can change too, but thats the point of a wiki, to update it as features change, not as cities and empires rise and fall. 

 

Activities themselves, like some EVE examples like ganking, would belong on the wiki because they a part of the game, but specific examples or organizations that take part in those activities can change, and so they do not belong on the wiki.

 

Perhaps a select few organizations or individuals may make it onto the wiki in time, if they had a huge impact and what they did or have is relevent and permanent. But in my opinion, no information on the wiki should be able to change based on the actions of players. If what a specific player or group of players does can change the information, then it doesn't belong. 

[yamamushi]

6 minutes ago, ATMLVE said:

There's a lot of discussion here, I like it. Several people agree with me l, but are saying that some player made content belongs if it is influential. Thank you all that have shared your opinion. 

 

I will say I am even more "radical" than most that agree with me; I'm against all player made content entirely, if it can change. If it is an organization or city, it can change, so it doesn't belong. Sure game content can change too, but thats the point of a wiki, to update it as features change, not as cities and empires rise and fall. 

 

Activities themselves, like some EVE examples like ganking, would belong on the wiki because they a part of the game, but specific examples or organizations that take part in those activities can change, and so they do not belong on the wiki.

 

Perhaps a select few organizations or individuals may make it onto the wiki in time, if they had a huge impact and what they did or have is relevent and permanent. But in my opinion, no information on the wiki should be able to change based on the actions of players. If what a specific player or group of players does can change the information, then it doesn't belong. 

 

100% agreed.

 

No player-created content should be in the official wiki whatsoever (following the guidelines you laid out). 

 

 

 

[RightBigToe]

That argument doesn't make sense to me because the parts of the game that are developed are also going to change over time. This game does not have any true content without the players and not including that severely limits the ability of the wiki to be a useful resource.  

 

It would be the equivalent of the EVE wiki not discussing the empires or what empire space is. All the wiki would be is a dry reappropriation of the in-game tutorial with some extra pictures.

[Lord_Void]

Perhaps we need some sort of of specialised group of players who are interested in working on a separate record of the games history and the orgs within it ... Some sort of Historical Society ...

[Cybrex]

7 minutes ago, Lord_Void said:

Perhaps we need some sort of of specialised group of players who are interested in working on a separate record of the games history and the orgs within it ... Some sort of Historical Society ...

 

Wait a minute....

 

 

....I see what you're doing. 

[yamamushi]

Artificially siloing everyone into the wiki isn't the way to approach the problem. Creating new tools and sites that are better formatted for that purpose is. 

 

How is anyone going to navigate the wiki when there are 5000 "major" cities spread over the game? 

 

 

Keep the wiki for official content, there will be enough expansions and patches in the years to come to continue to give room for people to update it as necessary. It doesn't need player content to inflate it. The second that player content shows up on the official wiki, it inherently becomes endorsed by NovaQuark and that is a slippery slope that we will never recover from. 

 

 

I'm with @ATMLVE on this, keep the official wiki for official content. 

 

 

[John]

this wiki is the official one, NovaQuark migth have an idea on what should be or not be on this wiki. Any input on this debate NQ-Nyzaltar?

 

A wiki lives through contributors modifying the information, so an equilibrium migth be created and might help to have neutral information. But inserting infos on player contents would inflate a lot the size of the wiki and the practicality of this official wiki for new comers

 

Edited August 6, 2017 by John

[Vorengard]

47 minutes ago, RightBigToe said:

 

I still think that it is an appropriate location for a neutral description of major organizations, but agree it would not be simple to maintain.

 

My only problem with this approach is the unnatural advantage it gives to those organizations. There's huge amounts of psychological research that indicates that name recognition has a huge effect on how people view other groups, what they buy, who they trust, and many other aspects of human interaction. This is why major corporations spend hundreds of millions of dollars just to put their name on a new stadium; because every time anyone mentions that stadium, they're inadvertently building brand recognition, which has a demonstrable effect on sales. 

 

Therefor, by identifying certain organizations as "major" on the wiki, we would essentially be validating those orgs to the community. New players would be more strongly drawn to join these groups. People would be more likely to buy ships and products from these groups simply because they've heard of them before. The community itself would, to some extent, view these organizations more highly because they've been arbitrarily identified as "important". This would put smaller groups at a serious disadvantage.

 

Think about it: you're a new player cruising the market with absolutely no idea what to buy and you see two ships in your price range. One is an unfamiliar ship built by some no-name industrial corp with 6 members, and the other is a mass-market design from some major organization who's name you've seen around a few times. Even if the indy design is slightly better and more affordable, most people will buy the brand they've heard of, because their subconscious tells them that must be better simply because they've heard of it (after all, if it's good, why haven't I heard of it?).

 

Obviously this is going to happen no matter what we do, but I don't think that's a line the wiki should be drawing, and definitely not before the game has even launched. The point of a wiki is to help people learn the game, not to advocate for one group or another, even indirectly.

[yamamushi]

8 minutes ago, Vorengard said:

 

My only problem with this approach is the unnatural advantage it gives to those organizations. There's huge amounts of psychological research that indicates that name recognition has a huge effect on how people view other groups, what they buy, who they trust, and many other aspects of human interaction. This is why major corporations spend hundreds of millions of dollars just to put their name on a new stadium; because every time anyone mentions that stadium, they're inadvertently building brand recognition, which has a demonstrable effect on sales. 

 

1

 

 

This is exactly why I'm against any player content on the wiki as ATMLVE laid out. Not just for organizations but also for cities/stations/whatever, because the impact will be the same regardless. 

[Comrademoco]

I posted this in discord will post it here as well...

 

The Gamepedia wiki is the game's official wiki, and as all official wikis they should only contain official core mechanics and official information regarding Dual Universe, nothing else.

 

Because our organizations are all player made content, it is therefore "non-official" - I use the term here loosely because the game does revolve around player made content - this information should be kept separate in a player made wiki. 

 

 

Again;

 

Gamepedia Wiki = Official Information from Novaquark only (mechanics, lore, information etc)

 

Playermade Wiki = Unofficial Player Made content

 

 

 

Cheers,

Comrademoco

 

[Shynras]

As much as I can understand most of you not wanting player-made content infos in the wiki, I don't think this idea applies well for DU, since mostly what is made of. After all a wiki is just a place to share informations and players will read what they're interested in anyway: if they're looking for informations about Cybrex or about the CoreUnit it's not our matter.

 

That said, I'd like to see an innovative wiki for an innovative game

[ATMLVE]

I see a lot of people saying that Dual Universe is based around player made content, so it does belong on the wiki. I look at it from a different perspective; there is infinite potential for player made content. (Essentially) infinite constructs, organizations, players, etc. are all possible for the game, so what determines which get added to the wiki?

 

The wiki is for mechanics in my opinion. You report the physics, and materials, and report the reasons for forming an organization and benefits of living in a city area. You do not report specific constructs, are buildings, or organizations, but the mechanics they are based upon and that is it.

 

For an analogy to the real world: with Dual Universe, you would not make an article for New York City or London. You wouldn't make an article for Winston Churchill, or the Empire State Building or Big Ben or the companies that built them. What you WOULD do is make articles on good construction materials and physics, the skills that enhance activities such as construction or leadership, and the benefits for sticking together as players. The wiki would provide guides and tips on how to build and where to obtain materials and which materials are best for what. But again, the wiki would not report what was done with all of these resources, it would only report them and allow players to do as they see fit.

[Anasasi]

The wiki should be based on the mechanics, the core gameplay and anything that could be recorded to help new players or old players alike out. 

With a game that has infinite amounts of player created content from structures to ships to communities I don't think it is a viable option to have all the player driven content recorded on a Wiki. 


 

[devu]

The wiki suppose to be about valuable information for the player. 
If pointing out where the biggest city lies or some trade hubs and who they belongs to is the valuable information... so be it.

At this point non of this exist. So not sure exactly why we debating this.

 

In other hand we have community portal here, developed by NQ and I am sure there will be lots of goodies coming from NQ and system will improve over a time and will be one place to go for all community business.

 

As I understand ATMLVE desire to have some place to put some historical record or track on what is going on. Again nothing wrong to write under DUH umbrella, those who stumbled upon it even today can easily find it. The only problem is there is 0 posts last time I've checked

[Alianin]

Hey guys, I'm a Gamepedia staff member and just wanted to throw some information in here. Player content does have a place on wikis, but it should be in a separate namespace and tagged as such, just so it's not confused as official game information. Here are some examples of how other wikis handle it:

Guilds on Wowpedia

Journals on No Man's Sky

Fan art on Ark

If you'd like to go this route, we can set up an "Organization" namespace, so pages will look like this "Organization:Terran Union". With that, you all will want to set up a template and some guidelines for people to follow as well. I'm happy to provide more examples or answer any questions.

[John]

Waiting for NovaQuark to jump on this debate, to know if they have a clear view on what should not be in this official wiki.

 

I asked for the view of the Gamepedia's managers.  We at least have a clear answer from them: https://dualuniverse.gamepedia.com/Talk:Terran_Union 

 

I quote :

"Hey guys, just wanted to throw some information in here. Player content does have a place on wikis, but it should be in a separate namespace and flagged as such, just so it's not confused as official game information. Here are some examples of how other wikis handle it:

• Guilds on Wowpedia
• Journals on No Man's Sky

If you'd like to go this route, just let me know and I can set up an "Organization" namespace, so pages will look like this "Organization:Terran Union". You'll want to set up a template and some guidelines for people to follow as well. Please let me know if you have any questions or if you'd like more information. :) --Alianin (talk) 21:28, 6 August 2017 (UTC)"

 

It's a way to keep official information clearly visible and the wiki practical for new comers on DU or Wiki.

If we're going in this direction to insert player contents in the wiki with a tag, an explanation of what means this tag on the main page should state what it implies, for example: "player content, not officical information from NovaQuark, to take with cautious". That way, new comers are aware of all the consequences: possible lack of representativity, possible lack of neutrality...

 

[yamamushi]

What is the point of contacting Gamepedia about this? It's not their game. The only voice that should matter in this is Novaquarks.

 

That would be like asking Discord employees about the layout of any given Discord server. 

[John]

I said to you yesterday that I'll contact Gamepedia and Nyzaltar to have inputs on this passionate debate, and maybe stop the unending debate on what should not be on the wiki.

Personnaly I'm completly neutral on the fact to add player contents on wiki or not. I think the diversity of wiki contributors will balance the wiki"s posts "promoting" organizations to reach a kind of neutrality. It's one of the idea of the fonctionning of Wikis in general. Others wikis like WoW are adding guildes info, so practically it can work. If I'm neutral on that, it's also because from the community page, and I think also directly in the game, it will already be quite easy to see which are the largest and most active organizations.

 

My only concern is that it will inflate the size of this wiki, and makes it less practical for a new player searching for information. Nevertheless, from the beginning I felt that this debate will be passionate, and that's why I contacted managers from both sides (Gamepedia and NQ).

 

Here we have the answer from Gamepedia who hosts the wiki. Still waiting for Nyzaltar's answer to have NQ view, if they have an opinion and if they want to supervise what is on the Wiki...

If not, we will have to find a compromize without NQ, and Gamepedia is at least proposing a solution with this tag thing.

Having a clear statement and a clear tag will solve most of the concerns of having player contents on the official wiki, and it would clearly distinguish official contents and player contents.

 

Edit: NQ-Nyzaltar answered me, and NQ will give their stance on this topic today.

Edited August 7, 2017 by John
Nyzaltar answer

[NQ-Nyzaltar]

Hi everyone,

 

Here is the official stance of Novaquark regarding the wiki made on Gamepedia. We launched the wiki on this platform with the goal in mind to let the Community fill/improve/complete it. we really thank  all those who have already participated in it. However, the wiki was never meant to reference player-created content (hence organization descriptions). It's made to describe official content, game mechanics and possible emergent gameplay.

 

Here are the reasons for our stance:

 

1) To keep some meaning for each website.
- The wiki is there for the gameplay and the game mechanics and the official content.
- The community portal is the place for all the community-created content (as it will evolve a lot with the arrival of a dedicated web developer joining the team soon).

 

2) If we start to include Organizations description, we will have to do it for every organization or none of them.

Referencing a few organizations will raise a ton of issues while referencing will gave the wiki contributors an unreasonable amount of work.

 

3) To keep a certain neutrality and peace on the wiki.
We aren't blind or naive. The moment some player-created content (especially organizations description or history) is included on the wiki, it will become a battlefield and we don't want that. The wiki is not made nor designed for that. Remember what happened recently on the Community Portal with a system not (yet) fully implemented to take into account attempts of sabotage.

 

So for all these reasons, we don't want to see Organization pages appearing on the Gamepedia wiki.

 

Other wiki mentioned in this topic are, in our opinion, not relevant examples:
- World of Warcraft is a theme park MMORPG where Guilds are not in direct competition (sure, there are Battlegrounds and Arenas for PVP, but there is no reason to reduce the visibility of any guild, while there can be in sandbox MMORPGs like EVE Online or Dual Universe).
- No Man’s Sky is not a MMORPG. Not even Multiplayer, so there are even less reasons for this case to go wrong.

 

Best Regards,
Nyzaltar.

[Hades]

2 hours ago, NQ-Nyzaltar said:

Hi everyone,

 

Here is the official stance of Novaquark regarding the wiki made on Gamepedia. We launched the wiki on this platform with the goal in mind to let the Community fill/improve/complete it. we really thank  all those who have already participated in it. However, the wiki was never meant to reference player-created content (hence organization descriptions). It's made to describe official content, game mechanics and possible emergent gameplay.

 

Here are the reasons for our stance:

 

1) To keep some meaning for each website.
- The wiki is there for the gameplay and the game mechanics and the official content.
- The community portal is the place for all the community-created content (as it will evolve a lot with the arrival of a dedicated web developer joining the team soon).

 

2) If we start to include Organizations description, we will have to do it for every organization or none of them.

Referencing a few organizations will raise a ton of issues while referencing will gave the wiki contributors an unreasonable amount of work.

 

3) To keep a certain neutrality and peace on the wiki.
We aren't blind or naive. The moment some player-created content (especially organizations description or history) is included on the wiki, it will become a battlefield and we don't want that. The wiki is not made nor designed for that. Remember what happened recently on the Community Portal with a system not (yet) fully implemented to take into account attempts of sabotage.

 

So for all these reasons, we don't want to see Organization pages appearing on the Gamepedia wiki.

 

Other wiki mentioned in this topic are, in our opinion, not relevant examples:
- World of Warcraft is a theme park MMORPG where Guilds are not in direct competition (sure, there are Battlegrounds and Arenas for PVP, but there is no reason to reduce the visibility of any guild, while there can be in sandbox MMORPGs like EVE Online or Dual Universe).
- No Man’s Sky is not a MMORPG. Not even Multiplayer, so there are even less reasons for this case to go wrong.

 

Best Regards,
Nyzaltar.

Fantastic.  But what's your stance on well-established cities/trade hubs.  One thing that could be a large deterrent for new players is being able to find a good starting place once they leave the starting area.

 

Granted, this might not be a problem if someone builds a high end hub just outside of the starting area that still attracts older players.

 

The only incentive I see for older players to be in the general starting area is recruitment, and of course if someone is truly benevolent and wishes to help newbies out.  However, many will be drawn to where there is more profit, meaning there won't be an abundance of helping hands to guide a new player.   As such it would be good if new players could be pointed to a well-established city.  Sure it could fall, and the wiki would have to be edited.  

 

But the new player would inevitably encounter older players in a city/hub that can point them in the right direction as I imagine the vastness and sheer possibilities will be daunting.  There's nothing worse than being a new player with no where to go.

 

Perhaps you guys will have a different solution such as a multimedia screen with directions to decent cities/trade hubs.  Not sure if it would be possible, but you could even link the screen to their territory controllers and as soon as a controller is in jealousy it's removed from the screen. 

 

Anywho, just food for thought.  There's no guarantee new players will look at the community page... in fact, I'd say it's a slim chance to none. 

 

Edit:

 

The new player experience is what can make or break a game.  There is plenty to bring people back with in dual universe, so let's work on making it easy to be integrated into the universe?

 

Easy to learn, impossible to master and all that jazz.

[ATMLVE]

13 minutes ago, Hades said:

Fantastic.  But what's your stance on well-established cities/trade hubs.  One thing that could be a large deterrent for new players is being able to find a good starting place once they leave the starting area.

 

Granted, this might not be a problem if someone builds a high end hub just outside of the starting area that still attracts older players.

 

The only incentive I see for older players to be in the general starting area is recruitment, and of course if someone is truly benevolent and wishes to help newbies out.  However, many will be drawn to where there is more profit... and as such it would be good if new players could be pointed to a well-established city.  Sure it could fall, and the wiki would have to be edited.  

 

But the new player would inevitably encounter older players that can point them in the right direction as I imagine the vastness and sheer possibilities will be daunting.  There's nothing worse than being a new player with no where to go.

 

Perhaps you guys will have a different solution such as a multimedia screen with directions to decent cities/trade hubs.  Not sure if it would be possible, by you could even link the screen to their territory controllers and as soon as a controller is in jealousy it's removed from the screen. 

 

Anywho, just food for thought.  There's no guarantee new players will look at the community page... in fact, I'd say it's a slim chance to none. 

 

The wiki is not the place to go to for up to date information on the busiest trade hubs or best cities. If a new player really is struggling to find where all the activity is and they look at the wiki, and not anywhere else in the community, then they are a fool. A game wiki is not an intuitive location for current community status. 

 

The reason not to add a busy hub to the wiki is the same as I have been saying; the status of that hub can change at any time. It could become overrun by pirates or become a rival and a target. Wiki pages aren't meant to change every week depending on the current status of their topics, it is meant to be a permanent page and resource for information.

 

Yes, game mechanics change over time, but they are far, far less volatile than a trade hub in a single-shard game.

 

I'll lay out a set of guidelines for the wiki so that hopefully discussions like this won't need to happen again. Community content may be included on the wiki, but only in direct case-by-case bases if that material could be valuable. Several people have made good arguments relating to EVE, where community content was appropriate for the EVE wiki. Content pages for organizations that are currently active, especially in pre-alpha, have the potential for more harm than helpfulness, but in time as the game progresses it may be appropriate to create pages for specific community organizations or projects that have ended but had huge influence. 

 

Once again, my main goal is for no pages on the wiki to be 'influencable' by players. If current player actions can determine the content of the page, then it does not belong. 

[Pang_Dread]

22 hours ago, RightBigToe said:

So again, my idea was never to include a list of every organization or space ship a player makes, that'd be assine.  My idea was that key aspects of player-created content, such as major organizations, deserve to have a page on the wiki because it's content players in general are interested in a neutral viewpoint of.

 

It doesn't make any sense to me to exclude things just be because they aren't created by NQ because the vast majority of the game won't be created by NQ.

 

A fair compromise as is mentioned above is to say only more abstract player creations like major cities, landmarks, and such would have pages on the wiki.  Explicit player creations such as organizations, ships, and players themselves can be linked back to the community page, where appropriate.

 

I still think that it is an appropriate location for a neutral description of major organizations, but agree it would not be simple to maintain.

Yeah to me and like others said, as well as NQs official statement just above only including some Orgs or cities deemed in some arbitrary manor to be worthy of an entry on the wiki will cause so much drama and guild battles. That's fine for fan sites and in game gen chats but not for the official wiki page of the game.

[Hades]

27 minutes ago, ATMLVE said:

 

The wiki is not the place to go to for up to date information on the busiest trade hubs or best cities. If a new player really is struggling to find where all the activity is and they look at the wiki, and not anywhere else in the community, then they are a fool. A game wiki is not an intuitive location for current community status. 

 

The reason not to add a busy hub to the wiki is the same as I have been saying; the status of that hub can change at any time. It could become overrun by pirates or become a rival and a target. Wiki pages aren't meant to change every week depending on the current status of their topics, it is meant to be a permanent page and resource for information.

 

Yes, game mechanics change over time, but they are far, far less volatile than a trade hub in a single-shard game.

 

I'll lay out a set of guidelines for the wiki so that hopefully discussions like this won't need to happen again. Community content may be included on the wiki, but only in direct case-by-case bases if that material could be valuable. Several people have made good arguments relating to EVE, where community content was appropriate for the EVE wiki. Content pages for organizations that are currently active, especially in pre-alpha, have the potential for more harm than helpfulness, but in time as the game progresses it may be appropriate to create pages for specific community organizations or projects that have ended but had huge influence. 

 

Once again, my main goal is for no pages on the wiki to be 'influencable' by players. If current player actions can determine the content of the page, then it does not belong. 

Calling new players idiots isn't going to help the situation.  Like I said (or maybe I didn't? Either way...) it's hard to tell at the moment how new players will enter the game.  But, what I do know it's best to give them the utmost best experience possible. And this should not require them to seek out a community page they probably don't even know exists.

 

Whether it's through the wiki, or another way it doesn't matter.   The wiki sounds like a relatively simple fix for the situation, but as the creators it's your prerogative I suppose.  

 

I just havent seen a good argument other than "a hub can fall."  Which in my opinion, isn't a very good excuse.  The whole "but its community content not official" seems like a cop out to me to reinforce the argument.

 

When we are talking about a hub being placed on the wiki, it would have to have a long history and good standing.  If it does fall, great someone will take it off the wiki I imagine.

 

We aren't talking about adding every little thing to the wiki, just broad strokes.

 

suppose it's a moot point, gotta respect the wiki creators.

 

 

edit: 

So there is both a wiki and a gamepedia?  So why can't one just have official business, and the other have limited hubs/centers and let's see which one more people use.