SL New Look

[techumseh]

I'd rather wait for a little more feedback, Leo.

[Mercator]

Aargh! Miscommunication alert!

How about we all stop for a moment and discuss what we (as in, the entire Scenario League community) actually want/need and what the pros and cons of the possible approaches are? Not everyone seems to agree on using a wiki...

I can't be of any help in this, unfortunately. Well, nothing beyond the discussion anyway.

Oh, and more importantly, St. Leo and techumseh are the only two people who seem to have any skills in this area whatsoever (since I'm out), so everyone keep that in mind... If you don't like that, get off your ass and start learning (X)HTML/CSS/PHP etc. We can certainly use a few extra people helping out.

[techumseh]

Skills? Me? I don't think so. I'm just trying to learn this as I go along.

Merc is right about the divergent directions. Here's what I think we have a concensus on:

1. a better organized, more user friendly site
2. a new look
3. a site to host our graphics and scenarios

Other things that have been proposed:

1. a blog
2. a wiki

Can we integrate the blog and/or wiki into part of the new site, on an experimental basis? I think the blog in particular would be a nice addition to the "news" section. I don't really have any idea how the wiki would be used.

[Mercator]

Originally posted by techumseh
I'm just trying to learn this as I go along.

That already puts you miles ahead of the rest.

Edit: and I agree with your points there... The wiki thing is mainly useful for allowing the community to easily update things themselves. That's particularly helpful for maintaining and updating things like hints, tips and guides.

[St Leo]

Let's say Brunhilda Thompson has designed a scenario called "War of 1812".

She will go to sleague.apolyton.net/wiki/Special:Upload and upload her files and screenshots. She will then edit her URL address bar to sleague.apolyton.net/wiki/War of 1812.

The page will say "You've followed a link to a page that doesn't exist yet. To create the page, start typing in the box below (see the help page for more info). If you are here by mistake, just click your browser's back button." There will be a text box present into which she can type/paste her scenario description.

Brunhilda will type in something like this:

[[Image:warof1812title.gif]]
The War of 1812 was fought between the United States and Great Britain from June 1812 to the spring of 1815, although the peace treaty ending the war was signed in Europe in December 1814. The main land fighting of the war occurred along the Canadian border, in the Chesapeake Bay region, and along the Gulf of Mexico; extensive action also took place at sea.

==Screenshots==
[[Image:warof1812screen1.gif]]
[[Image:warof1812screen2.gif]]

==Downloads==
[[Media:warof1812.zip]]

[[Category:Civ2 Scenario]]
[[Category:Historical Scenario]]

Saved, this will be a new orphan page that shows up on the list at Special:Lonelypages. Brunhilda will now be able to link to it on other pages by typing something like:

~~~~
[[War of 1812]]

- multiple War of 1812 scenarios can share pages or have individual pages called War of 1812 (Brunhilda) and War of 1812 (Champlain)
- we'll require user registration for editing and restrain the max upload size to something reasonable.
- categories are created and managed automatically, but adding a manual blurb to them is a good idea

References:
Editing FAQ
How to edit a page
How to start a new page
How to revert a page to an earlier version
isambiguation">How to create page(s) for topics with several different definitions
Categorization

[curtsibling]

I am sorry to rain on the parade, but roaming users are just
not going to bother learning web-page making or wiki-usage
just to upload a scenario.

Why not make a poll?

Unless the posters are consulted and a system is put
in place soon, the usual users are going to vanish...

Losing our post-counts were bad enough, and the dismissive
attitide of the admin in this regard is annoying.

For people who so recently were on the warpath about 'elitism'
and users being alienated, I find this new demand that people
'go and learn wiki/dreamweaver, or shut up' to be hilariously ironic.

Why can't we just have the forum system we had before,
only streamline it, and for dog's sake back it up properly?

Seems now that we have a few people making choices
of the majority - Isn't that elitism, gentlemen?

PS
You may argue that we don't 'have' to post here, and
the admin run the forum without reward. but without
the posters you are kings without a kingdom to rule....

[St Leo]

You are getting the forum system back.

The wiki will replace the current site, not the forums. You don't want to see the evil pages that I use to administrate the sleague site right now. Both Boco and DarthVeda couldn't make sense of them at all.

[curtsibling]

But it seems as cluttered as before...

.

[St Leo]

Instead of stickying the graphics threads, I've stickied a thread with links to them.

A thread with links to tips is pointless until we get the old posts back.

What do you propose?

[curtsibling]

I am not making proposals, just observations.
Being a loyal poly poster, I reckon that is allowed?

About the sticky master thread - It sounds good, I can run with that.

I guess letting the individual threads fall down the list until they have
new posted content is a good way to combat the clutter.

Good move.

I also agree about the tips.
This time, just be careful when editing!

If the admin is convinced that the poster majority
is satisfied with the new system, well that is cool...

All I saw was a few veterans making executive choices,
minus the consent of the general CIV2 posting population. (small though it is)

I still think we should have a thread were people list
what posts they lost and should be compensated in turn...
Personally, I couldn't care less about 'my' postcount, but
many newer posters will fall away now, demoralised at
losing so many posts....

The admin should do something.

.

[CapTVK]

Originally posted by curtsibling
I am sorry to rain on the parade, but roaming users are just
not going to bother learning web-page making or wiki-usage
just to upload a scenario.

.....

For people who so recently were on the warpath about 'elitism'
and users being alienated, I find this new demand that people
'go and learn wiki/dreamweaver, or shut up' to be hilariously ironic.

Like St. Leo stated the SL Apolyton forum will still be the forums we've always had (after the admins have managed to restore the old posts). If anything is going to change it's only the SL scenario site itself were all the Civ2 design tips and scenarios can be found. A Wiki for that site is perfect because it will be far easier to maintain and update, by the users themselves.

And "learning Wiki" from a users perspective isn't that hard. There really isn't that much to master. In my experience its about the same learning curve you have with posting on a forum and including images with your posts. Once you can do that you can do anything.

If you've done it once, you can do it twice.

[St Leo]

Markos is going to restore post counts up to about a month back. If that's insufficient, feel free to start a thread yourself.

[Mercator]

Originally posted by curtsibling
I am sorry to rain on the parade, but roaming users are just
not going to bother learning web-page making or wiki-usage
just to upload a scenario.

Sure, users shouldn't need to learn to make a webpage. But the only reasons why we would want them to do that is either for their own benefit, so they have their own little showcase (and won't find all their stuff lost when the forum dies again, and don't have to rely on others to get things back up), or so we can get more people to help out on the SLeague website.

Of course, if you just want to use the forum for everything, like it's been happening lately, that's possible too. But if we do that, our website becomes pretty much obsolete. And with that website the Scenario League's independence. Remember how techumseh and St Leo mentioned the Scenario League started independently from Apolyton. The Scenario League would cease to exist, except in name. It will just be a fancy name for the Civ2 Creation forum... Not that that necessarily has to be a bad thing either, I'm just pulling an emotional trump card.

IMHO, a forum really just isn't made for complex structures and lots of downloads. That's what websites are for.

The advantage of a wiki is that it is just about as easy, if not easier, to update than a forum, but also has the advantages of a regular website. Why don't you have a look at the wiki references St Leo gave and try it out in the sandbox:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Sandbox

I don't think it's any more difficult than using vB code. It's just a bit different. (i.e. what CapTVK said)

Why not make a poll?

Maybe we should, but a poll about what? Wiki vs. "normal" website vs. forum index thread? Then again, we could very well have both a forum index thread and a wiki. The question then becomes, what do we put in the wiki and what do we put in the index thread?

(...) and for dog's sake back it up properly?

I don't think that's under our control. MarkG has already stated that it's impractical to backup the forum any more often. That's one of the reasons to also have a website.

For people who so recently were on the warpath about 'elitism'
and users being alienated, I find this new demand that people
'go and learn wiki/dreamweaver, or shut up' to be hilariously ironic.

Seems now that we have a few people making choices
of the majority - Isn't that elitism, gentlemen?

PS
You may argue that we don't 'have' to post here, and
the admin run the forum without reward. but without
the posters you are kings without a kingdom to rule....

I'm certainly not telling anyone to shut up, on the contrary.

Isn't this a public forum we're on? What I'm wondering is, why the hell isn't anyone else giving their opinion!?

St Leo, techumseh, CapTVK and me, mainly, have been spouting ideas and St Leo and techumseh have been busy implementing them. If anyone else has any ideas, suggestions or reservations, or is willing to help out, for the love of Bob, tell us (and that's "us" as in the Scenario League, not just the mods or so)!

Since noone else said anything (until you did) how is anyone supposed to know what everyone thinks? Since St Leo and techumseh will probably be the ones who will have to implement this stuff whatever it's going to be, they just decided to do something.


P.S. Oh, and St Leo, "Brunhilda Thompson"??

P.P.S. This has become quite the threadjack, hasn't it.

[Panda]

Originally posted by Mercator
P.P.S. This has become quite the threadjack, hasn't it.

Well if someone starts a thread entitled "I want my post count/title/avatar back" and we threadjack that with ideas for the SL website, then I guess we'll have gone full circle.

I must say though that I was concerned more with the propgation of directory threads than the website, which is why I've keeping a watchful silence. Using the forum is more democratic in that it is easy to post scenario work and receive feedback, and now I know that threads can link directly to file and images attachments in other threads I'm keener on this than ever. Plus with topped directory threads you don't need so many other sticky threads for, say, graphics, which gives newcomers a better idea of what we're about.

Having said that, the website is extremely important, and it wasn't that long ago that MarkG was openly debating closing the SLeague forum because the website had been so long without an update it was nearly dead, before the revival under St Leo. I would like people to start critical reviewing again, but then again some others may prefer feedback privately. So yes, by all means poll away! And while we're about it, how about a poll on how many people are entering SDC#5?

[St Leo]

P.S. Oh, and St Leo, "Brunhilda Thompson"??