twilightramblings
Handicapper
Joined: Sat Aug 25, 2018 7:30 am Posts: 210
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Discord and Wiki?
So I'm not sure if this suggestion has been floated before but I thought it might be worth floating.
Discord is an IM app, used and built primarily for gamers. It's kind of like the old IRC but now it comes with things like voice chat, multiple "channels", screen sharing, and a marker for when someone's playing a game from Steam. You can upload files and there's like Reddit style helper bots that can moderate, post content, clean up, etc. Each group who uses it makes what's called a "server" and that server can only be accessed by people with an invitation link, so it's not like having a Facebook page or a blog. It is, of course, free and open to everyone once you sign up. It also doesn't use real names, just nicknames.
I use it every day to chat to friends and I actually built the server that me and my friends use, creating each "channel", setting up roles (permissions), writing up pinned posts with rules and suggestions and also setting up the bots to have custom commands we use for reaction gifs mostly. And every time I see mention of the League on here, I can't help but think how awesome it would be for League players (and of course normal players). What with the screen sharing, the voice chat, the uploading files... There could be a channel just for posting Handicaps, one for conversation, one for posting the race video replays. Plus the normal channels of tech support, beta development, general, etc.
Whoever sets up the server owns the access to it (though it can be transferred to another person) and then assigns roles to other people. So for instance, Mod, League Member, Modder, even fun ones like the first SO you played, etc. Users don't have to have a role to comment. And I've seen quite a few games and web apps starting to use a Discord server as their help forum. Most Twitch or Youtube people have them as well. In the help Discords, it's not uncommon for people to join, ask a question, and then leave.
The other thing I wondered about is a wiki. Even in the short time I've been on the forum, I've seen some questions repeated within days of each other, so I'm sure long time users have seen this as well. Searching through the forums for the exact answer to your question, especially if you don't use the right term, can take a long time. A wiki could help new players and bridge the gap some people have commented the manual has. It could also be a place where modders make a new page for their mod with installation instructions that stays static and then if a person needs to ask questions, they can in the forum (or maybe Discord).
I've actually been going through all the forum posts and writing down every hint and tidbit I can find, to compile one of my own that's easily searchable and grouped by topic. I've gone through about half of the general pages, focusing on information that carries over to SO7, like the potential changes and breeding tips, etc. I also researched a little glossary of horse-racing terms, because I didn't know them and didn't understand what the form book was saying. I've got about 9,000 words or 24 pages of information typed up, though just dumped in a document, not sorted.
There are sites like Fandom.com that allow fans of a topic to create an unofficial wiki about it or there are commercial solutions for official wikis. As a personal side note, I really dislike Fandom.com because it uses about half the screen real estate to advertise things that don't relate to the wiki you're viewing at all, but it does give an idea of what's possible. The benefits of wikis is that any user can sign in and make a change on an article, so if what's posted isn't right or could be expanded upon, it doesn't rely on the person who posted it to go back and edit it.
I'm just kind of throwing both these suggestions out there to see what people would think of them. I'd be happy to provide a mockup of a wiki page with some of the info I have but I'm sure we've all read a Wikipedia article before and all wikis are built to be pretty similar in style. I'm gonna add a poll with the two things as options, so if you'd be interested you can add your vote even if you don't want to comment. Might help Mark decide if he wants to take it on as another project.
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twilightramblings
Handicapper
Joined: Sat Aug 25, 2018 7:30 am Posts: 210
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Re: Discord and Wiki?
Adding to the info in this post to say that after posting it, I found the MediaWiki open-source self-hosted wiki that can be loaded onto a hosting site. It looks exactly like Wikipedia and it's free to use, it just needs a domain and hosting. Plus that way, anyone signing up doesn't have to sign up to network that will try and send emails advertising other fandoms or track your information.
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