The Winter of the Forge looms near
Troy_Costisick:
Heya,
Ron, you've done an excellent job of recognizing when The Forge has needed a transition. I feel my life has been quite enriched by the struggles and battles that have been fought out here. I'm looking forward to the Winter phase, and especially the return of the Ronnies. That was such an important time for me. Thanks. I, too, hope that this is a very productive season for The Forge.
I noticed that the Archive Forum is open for posting. Does that mean there's an open-ended invitation to begin culling thread links and posting topics there? I've read the sticky, but it didn't make things especially clear to me.
Peace,
-Troy
lumpley:
Troy: there is. Please do!
- Vincent
Jono:
Hello everybody,
I rarely post here since I rarely feel that I have anything to add to the discussion, but I've been reading the Forge and enjoying the hell out of many Forge-derived games, since 2007. It's not an exaggeration to say that the Forge saved role-playing for me. I probably would have dropped out of the hobby out of frustration by now if I hadn't found it. So I too am sad that it's moving on to the end of its life-cycle, but it seems like the appropriate finale to end the site with decisiveness rather than letting it die with a whimper.
I was recently talking to Chris Chinn about the issue he mentions upthread: how to preserve the wisdom gleaned from the discussion here, in a form that makes it easier to share with, and explain to, the gamers of the future?
That's why I was very interested to read this:
Quote from: Ron Edwards on November 03, 2010, 09:18:22 AM
5. I desperately want help in setting up the Forge Wiki we almost got going a few years back. What I have in mind is not a standard multi-user Wiki, but rather a means of understanding the ideas developed here through user-friendly explanations with organized linkage into the whole history of Forge threads. The Winter will be dedicated to making such a thing functional, perhaps including a Forge Forum specifically for bitching about the Wiki's contents once it gets going, not only for corrections purposes, but also so nuances and alternate views can be acknowledged as part of the resources too.
Ron, do you mean that you're looking for help with the web-development/server-administration side of setting up the Wiki, or are you looking for help mostly with writing the entries and organizing the links and information?
Either way, I think this is a fantastic idea and I'd like to offer my help. I've been doing some Forge archive-crawling of my own lately, and put up a blog post here: http://www.evilbrainjono.net/blog?showcomments=true&permalink=864 that attempted to summarize the old discussions about Illusionism/Participationism and Narrativism, in a way that would be easy to follow for my readers without assuming prior knowledge of theory jargon. I want to do more along these lines anyway, and a wiki seems like an ideal format for that.
(The labels on my flowchart in that post are a bit snarky; I really dislike Illusionism, and I was in a snarky mood that day. I would think that the wiki articles ought to be from a more neutral point of view, without the snark.)
Ron, what do you think? Can you tell me more about your plans for this wiki?
Thanks,
--Jono
Ron Edwards:
Hi Jono,
Good to see you again.
I don't have the time or energy to concentrate on that topic right now, except to say that some of the answers are in place and some aren't, and that I'll be able to refine my ideas about after finals. Resources like your link will definitely be involved.
Hi Christoph,
Sorry to forget your question. I realize now that the term "physical" is really loaded. I suppose "look and feel" is the meaning I was groping for, simply what the page looks like, the opportunities or options that are immediately visually obvious, and the mechanics of how one moves around the site and makes use of stuff there. Basic webpage design.
Best, Ron
Mathew E. Reuther:
Aside from a question of organization of archived material (which a wiki tends to go a longs ways towards handling with relatively little effort from any one person) I at least see nothing wrong with the format of the Forge.
One advantage of being set in a forums structure is that it is an almost "timeless" method of information exchange.
Look and feel for something like that is far less important than site formats which tend to evolve as technology does. Looking at forums from 10 years ago and those of today there are far fewer differences than you'd find between web sites of such disparate ages.
There's always room for improvement on any site of any type, but at least forums tend to stand the test of time far, far more easily, and I certainly don't see them becoming obsolete any time soon, no matter how much sites try to shift towards social networking models like facebook. There's a purity in the way forums do things that cannot be matched in many respects.
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