New RPG Theory Glossary

[John Kim]

OK, so a few weeks ago in http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=10414">this thread, Ron wrote:

Status Report: the first draft is in Clinton's hands, and he is PDFing it in his copious spare time. It will be posted at the Forge and be subject to critique and debate from all you monkeys for one month. I'll post some rules about that, because believe me, there will be rules.

Then it'll get revised according to whatever criticisms and additions and so forth seem most helpful.

But I'll say to you all now: do not crank about how it's not the document you wanted. Write that one yourself, and I'll be the first to cite it when necessary.  

Well, I've decided to take up that offer.  I have a first pass at a glossary up at http://www.darkshire.net/~jhkim/rpg/theory/glossary/

I want it to be useful for Forge visitors and newbies, but also useful outside of The Forge.  Ideally I'd like it to be complementary to Ron's, but I haven't seen that yet so I can't really tell.  I want to incorporate terms from other communities, books, etc.  So, this is pretty rough at the moment, but there are some good features.  I think that an online HTML format is ideal, because I think it should ideally be a living document which frequently updates.  It also means that it's easy to hyperlink the entries to each other and to their source references.  

Anyhow, I'd like to get some feedback on it -- both over format and content.  Is this a good idea?  What else should go in there?  Are there stylistic problems you have with it?

[Andrew Martin]

I have a first pass at a glossary up at http://www.darkshire.net/~jhkim/rpg/theory/glossary/
...
Anyhow, I'd like to get some feedback on it -- both over format and content.  Is this a good idea?  What else should go in there?  Are there stylistic problems you have with it?

Hi, John.
I like it. I think it's a very good format. Thank you for publishing it.

The only significant improvement I can suggest at the moment is to use a Wiki format, like the Wikipedia at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia , so that interested readers can edit and add to the text. For example, as I was going through the text, I wasn't able to edit the text to put hyper-links in for the various people named in the text.

I'd like to have a cross-reference link from "Bangs" to "Kickers" and vice-versa.

[George Moralidis]

John,
seems like you put a lot of effort into this. As always, you did an excellent job.  And yes, it's a very good idea. A question: are you going to try to associate relevant/similar terms or not? E.g. "railroading" and "illusionism". Or would you rather have a list of terms being used in the Forge, without trying to draw parallels between these similar terms?

Andrew,
I am not sure if it would be a good idea if people could directly modify John's (or Ron's) glossary.

One could argue that it is inevitable, when someone is presenting a theory to include (even subconsciously) his/her views on the theory. But this is the only way to have a text that is coherent. Otherwise it is a list of terms.

Perhaps we could have three versions of a glossary: John's, Ron's and a third one which people will be able to edit directly (either with wiki or with a sticky thread for each one of the major techniques).

John's and Ron's would enable us to base a discussion on something coherent while the third one would enable each individual to present their take on a subject (to allow for diversity). After discussion, John or Ron could opt to modify one of their entries.

What do you think? (something tells me this suggestion could have problems as well, but i thought i'd throw it and see what people think).

[Jason Lee]

Overall, I like the format, especially the topic cross links.  However, I think there should be a newline between each entry, and the font size of the entry header should be a step larger.  It might also be worth considering removing the credits from the definition (ex, "Coin by Bob in 1955") and placing them into a subsection like References.

[Trevis Martin]

I am not sure if it would be a good idea if people could directly modify John's (or Ron's) glossary.

I like the idea of a Wiki.  Most of the good wiki engines such as Wikimedia (the one used by the Wikimedia Wiki Encyclopedia) and TWiki  Have both contributer tracking and keep track of revisions for restoration.

Trevis

[John Kim]

I am not sure if it would be a good idea if people could directly modify John's (or Ron's) glossary.

I like the idea of a Wiki.  Most of the good wiki engines such as Wikimedia (the one used by the Wikimedia Wiki Encyclopedia) and TWiki  Have both contributer tracking and keep track of revisions for restoration.

I had suggested a wiki as a possibility in the http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=10414">earlier glossary thread.  For example, I considered setting something up at http://www.seedwiki.com/, which has free hosting for wikis.  However, I wasn't thrilled with seedwiki's interface or appearance.  I'm not familiar with twiki, though.  

Right now I used a modification of the approach I use for my RPG encyclopedia because it was easy for me.  I have a source XML file, which you can view at http://www.darkshire.net/~jhkim/rpg/theory/glossary/fulllist.xml . I then have a Perl script which parses it and generates the HTML.  I keep the XML and code on my local machine, archived in CVS.  I have another script which I use to publish it to the server.  

I like this because (1) I prefer to be able to control the layout very closely, and (2) I can edit the complete glossary offline.  I'd be up for allowing editing, but it should require registration and tracking changes by user.  I think coming up with a CGI script should be possible, but would take some effort.  Anyone interested in helping set that up?

[Trevis Martin]

Well I recently set up the TWiki wiki engine on my own domain at http://wiki.trmfineart.com so if you think that would work I would be willing to help.  It isn't hard even if you don't have root access and the whole thing is a CGI.  The interface is customizable and the actual data is stored as textfiles.  Heck I might be able to host it, but it would depend on the traffic If its really heavy it might overload my bandwidth.

I'm don't know CGI scripting though so a I can't help with a seperate CGI script.

Trevis