Very well, we do it this way then

_________________
Lady Liserett of the House O'Kleefe
Countess of Chester-le-Ford, Wysteria
Deputy Minister of Hermertian History
Appointed Minister of Wysterian Architecture

Don't be discouraged, small steps are the best way. A few pages of content at a time and everyone can gradually build up a fantastic wiki.

I think both a top down and bottom up approach can be beneficial. For some areas of the wiki, like the "realms" page, it only makes sense to insert as many nations as possible. If there are some blank sections in the individual nation's subpages, then so be it. At least people have a list of all documented nations. However, for something like "religion" it might not make sense to list all the documented religions. I seem to recall a huuuuuge list of them on the last wiki, and only maybe 4-5 of them were fleshed out at all.

_________________
Joren

of River's End

It's all well and good to say that we should stick in articles as we go, but experience shows that without that concerted effort we lose interest and give up. I've started work in earnest on descriptions - can we all pester Atryl to get a library up so that we can be ready to go?

Let's do this right!

_________________
Wysterian Labourer's Council
Currently Holding Stewardship of Wysteria
Minister for Applications and Settlement
Forums Administrator

I agree with Arjen. I think we can certainly do as Liserett has done and list out major well-known things like realms and important persons, even if some of the pages are empty for a time. Other secondary or less well-known items like famous battles or religions could be added to lists once those pages are completed. I think it is important to have placeholders for the major things, with an "expand upon completion" method for expanding other lists of minor/secondary features of our lore.

_________________
Guardian of Casadia
Master of the Slayers Guild
Minister of Hermertian History

This is the key point, empty placeholder articles oft stay as just that. The concerted effort should be content first, not making a shell and then sticking in specific articles whenever anyone can be bothered to write them. It takes away the incentive of writing about the stuff you want. Rather than feeling articles are 'needed' and writing for the sake of filling in an empty page. Starting first with the content and building around that allows for a more functional wiki.

This was the main issue with the old library. It's trivially easy to copy paste an extra row in a table or and extra set of [[links]]. The placeholder page isn't necessary. By all means writie in the names major realms in the realms tab but don't make empty pages.

The point is slightly nuanced, I'm not suggesting we don't make mentio of realms if the page isn't perfect I'm advocating we don't make empty pages. There's no competition for say Perth's realm page, there's only one Perth, but if it's not made why make a greyed out link. Why not simply mention perth but not link it?

My second point is slightly different for more minor pages I would hope for link only lists, with a Content first push more stuff will get done on the wiki, you want to write about your religion's lore, great make a page and put it straight in and in the religion's tab. Got a good account of a famous battle. Write it in and thrn as it is in a tab with only links in it is showcased this will help with advertisements etc. We've already got some great forum lore posts and with 15 mins work these could be made into one page in the 'books' tab

I don't think you took a look at what I was working on before criticizing it as something that wouldn't work.

The structure I was planning doesn't include a single place holder page.

It's hard to stay motivated when hard work and ideas are shut down without being looked into.

_________________
Lady Liserett of the House O'Kleefe
Countess of Chester-le-Ford, Wysteria
Deputy Minister of Hermertian History
Appointed Minister of Wysterian Architecture

Everyone will be very appreciative of a well made wiki, from contributing a fair bit to the old wiki I feel it's important to establish the flaws of it. Once the first item in a table/list is written (the formatting) it's just copy paste to add another section to it.

The key point I want to get across is to try write articles on the stuff you want to first before make a large empty structure. It's easy it move around pages once they're made but with the last wiki there were too many empty pages where there didn't need to be. As mentioned there's only one Perth so there's no competition for the page title, so why not waiting until there's something to put I'm their before making and empty page.

I'm on mobile/busy atm but I can give you my thoughts specifically on your plan in February.

For me, a good analogy would be with the forums. It makes perfect sence to make sections before they're any posts in them as there will be posts in them/people know where to put posts.

So why not do the same with the wiki? Well it comes down to the functionality of the wiki. A wiki isn't a place for people to make posts and replies - a forum for discussion - it's a place for articles where people can read about particular things. You don't pose questions in wikis you write answers to them and the presence of empty links in detrimental to the wiki as it dilutes the amount of answers. It's harder to find realms with pages written on them when they're surrounded by empty pages. This isn't true for the forums.

Furthermore it's simple to add extra pages when they're ready so why not keep in mind to not worry about making empty space for pages when there is not competition for them.