The Campaign Builder's Guild

Just took a quick peak at the wiki. Is there any way we can break up the header into two headers? one for the wiki itself, and one that leads back to the main site? That way, every page would have a link back.

I'll have to talk with sparkle about the wiki. I am unfamiliar with it.

The left side of every wiki page has a "Back to the CBG" link that goes back to the main site. If that isn't what you meant I don't understand, I guess.

Don't really know whether I'm asking how to use an existing feature or requesting that a new feature be implemented. What I'd like to be able to do on the Wiki is set up a bank of, say, a couple dozen snippets of content, and then request that a different wiki page display one of those snippets at random. Say, to get a random quote, or to set up a link that leads to one of six or eight pages on the site that I'm trying to show off, or to make a header with a rotating image.

If possible, I'd like to run this off (I guess?) a template, so that I could make one quote bank or rotating banner image collection, then use it throughout my wiki. Is that feasable at all?

Quote from: Luminous CrayonDon't really know whether I'm asking how to use an existing feature or requesting that a new feature be implemented. What I'd like to be able to do on the Wiki is set up a bank of, say, a couple dozen snippets of content, and then request that a different wiki page display one of those snippets at random. Say, to get a random quote, or to set up a link that leads to one of six or eight pages on the site that I'm trying to show off, or to make a header with a rotating image.

If possible, I'd like to run this off (I guess?) a template, so that I could make one quote bank or rotating banner image collection, then use it throughout my wiki. Is that feasable at all?

It might be possible with a template. Again that's something you'll have to ask sparkle to do as I am about as knowledgeable of the wiki as freakin' awesome horse is of not being awesome. :P

In regards to active members vs. lurkers: http://www.useit.com/alertbox/participation_inequality.html

tl;dr: Lurkers are a fundamental challenge to any online community, and the easiest way to gain active members is to simply accept the plethora of lurkers that comes with each new active member.

Edit:

Quote from: sparkletwistThe left side of every wiki page has a "Back to the CBG" link that goes back to the main site. If that isn't what you meant I don't understand, I guess.

Took a look, and that is what I meant. I was just thinking of something a bit more prominent, and maybe placed a bit better.

just to quote the "solution" portion of the artical Rorschach posted/linked.

How to Overcome Participation Inequality
You can't.
The first step to dealing with participation inequality is to recognize that it will always be with us. It's existed in every online community and multi-user service that has ever been studied.

Your only real choice here is in how you shape the inequality curve's angle. Are you going to have the "usual" 90-9-1 distribution, or the more radical 99-1-0.1 distribution common in some social websites? Can you achieve a more equitable distribution of, say, 80-16-4? (That is, only 80% lurkers, with 16% contributing some and 4% contributing the most.)

Although participation will always be somewhat unequal, there are ways to better equalize it, including:

'¢Make it easier to contribute. The lower the overhead, the more people will jump through the hoop. For example, Netflix lets users rate movies by clicking a star rating, which is much easier than writing a natural-language review.
'¢Make participation a side effect. Even better, let users participate with zero effort by making their contributions a side effect of something else they're doing. For example, Amazon's "people who bought this book, bought these other books" recommendations are a side effect of people buying books. You don't have to do anything special to have your book preferences entered into the system. Will Hill coined the term read wear for this type of effect: the simple activity of reading (or using) something will "wear" it down and thus leave its marks '" just like a cookbook will automatically fall open to the recipe you prepare the most.
'¢Edit, don't create. Let users build their contributions by modifying existing templates rather than creating complete entities from scratch. Editing a template is more enticing and has a gentler learning curve than facing the horror of a blank page. In avatar-based systems like Second Life, for example, most users modify standard-issue avatars rather than create their own.
'¢Reward '" but don't over-reward '" participants. Rewarding people for contributing will help motivate users who have lives outside the Internet, and thus will broaden your participant base. Although money is always good, you can also give contributors preferential treatment (such as discounts or advance notice of new stuff), or even just put gold stars on their profiles. But don't give too much to the most active participants, or you'll simply encourage them to dominate the system even more.
'¢Promote quality contributors. If you display all contributions equally, then people who post only when they have something important to say will be drowned out by the torrent of material from the hyperactive 1%. Instead, give extra prominence to good contributions and to contributions from people who've proven their value, as indicated by their reputation ranking.
Your website's design undoubtedly influences participation inequality for better or worse. Being aware of the problem is the first step to alleviating it, and finding ways to broaden participation will become even more important as the Web's social networking services continue to grow.

Right. To give a rough idea of our own inequality curve, we currently have 1040 members. Of that, I doubt we have over a hundred contributing members. Even 75 seems a little high. Out of that, I counted about 20 members posting in this thread. I'd estimate our curve to be roughly 90-8-2.

http://www.facebook.com/home.php?sk=group_162368927119016

Interesting idea.

I'll agree with Lath's advice: Especially

>>'¢Make it easier to contribute. The lower the overhead, the more people will jump through the hoop. For example, Netflix lets users rate movies by clicking a star rating, which is much easier than writing a natural-language review.

Allowing people to REPLY TO THREAD on every page...which takes them to a "please register" link, is a lot better than the current way where you can only register on the main page and you can't even begin to reply to a thread otherwise. It seems very unwelcoming in the current system- if someone wants to write "great setting" it's just not worth their time.

Also, thanks Nomadic for noting that eventually non-registered-users will be able to see the wiki, irc (maybe), and donate tabs.

We need little things like "+1 like this post/thumbs up" for each post, "Recommend this thread", "most active posters of the week/month/ect" on the main page, "most recommended threads", ummm i think thats all i got for now... oh we need to brainstorm "reward/prize" ideas.

This is copied over from the Cross-Recommendation thread. I think this might be a better place for this:

Quote from: GambleWolfWhat about a keyword cross reference like they do with blogs. Like a list of words that are linked up to settings/elements?
  Off the top of my head: Macabre, Haunting, High adventure, Western, Feudal(Japan/Europe etc), system/rules-heavy, Homebrew Mechanics, Extensive, Bare-bones, Visually Striking(meaning thread presentation)

Quote from: Rorschach FritosThis is copied over from the Cross-Recommendation thread. I think this might be a better place for this:

Quote from: GambleWolfWhat about a keyword cross reference like they do with blogs. Like a list of words that are linked up to settings/elements?
  Off the top of my head: Macabre, Haunting, High adventure, Western, Feudal(Japan/Europe etc), system/rules-heavy, Homebrew Mechanics, Extensive, Bare-bones, Visually Striking(meaning thread presentation)

Tags? that would be good for insite search. I forgot that one, good idear.

I would really like to have a 'like' button on each post. There's a lot of the time when I look around and I think 'that was a really cool idea!' but I either don't have the time to reply or I can't think of anything constructive to say. A Like Button would at least show the author people ARE reading your work and liking it, even if they don't respond.

Quote from: Elemental_ElfI would really like to have a 'like' button on each post. There's a lot of the time when I look around and I think 'that was a really cool idea!' but I either don't have the time to reply or I can't think of anything constructive to say. A Like Button would at least show the author people ARE reading your work and liking it, even if they don't respond.

Interesting idea, what are people's thoughts on this?