RB New Front Page Draft/Do You Wanna Use A Wiki?

[BRickAstley]

So one less than ideal thing about Realms Beyond is that the front page of the site is pretty out of date, both in style and content. Some people, myself included, have talked about a grand rebuilding to update the front page and make it more useable. But so far that hasn't happened, and I know I don't have the time, desire, or ability to build/rebuild a whole content filled website. Especially when even if we have one, at least 95% of everything relevant will happen on the forums anyways.

So I had a little idea I wanna throw your way:

Here's a link to a simple, new initial landing page for Realms Beyond I've thrown together.

It could certainly be styled better, or have better intro text, but it's something simple, clean, and up to date enough that it won't scare people away. Gives a short summary of what we do here, and then sends them right to the forums where all the activity happens anyways. That seems to be the most important use of an updated front page at this point anyways.

You'll also notice a link on there to a Wiki for RB, that's hosted on our site and devoid of content. When I was doing some website admin stuff, I realized I could set up one of these wikis pretty easily. And it's something I also think could be really useful, as it's a more static and easy to organize place for things like Game summaries, Info pages on Mods we make here, strategy articles some people are keen on posting, a place to upload some of the farious tools and plugins people have developed for this site, and so on.

I am aware we already have a google spreadsheet for game summaries, and something like this isn't strictly needed for stuff like mod info, but I feel like it's potentially a better universal place for organizing and stylizing those things. So if you think it'd be useful, go ahead and start filling stuff out on there, it's open to registration and anyone registered should be able to edit the wiki.

Likewise with the front page, I'm not giving a "this is going into effect one week from today", more than anything I want to put word of it out there, hear what people think, and go from there. I feel like an updated front page of some sort would really be nice for anyone who comes across this site, but I'm not rooted to want to go this direction if I'm the only one that thinks so.

So sound off what you think about the front page draft and/or the wiki below.

[Old Harry]

Nice. The page looks a lot better than the old one, and although I'm sure someone could design something a bit more fancy I think it gets the important info across.

Also think the wiki is a very good idea as we have so many people willing to lend a hand here and there.

[Mardoc]

Most of our current activity is centered around the Civilization game series

Pretty sure this isn't true anymore. I think civ is only a plurality of our activity, not a majority.

Actually, I can think of a lot of things I'd add to the frontpage you're proposing, enough that it wouldn't be simple anymore.

I like the idea of a wiki, it's much more elegant than keeping things in google docs. But I'd use it mostly for storing all the odd bits of game information like the order of operations at turn end in Civ and how that makes the 'avoid growth' trick work in granaries.

[wetbandit]

Most of our current activity is centered around the Civilization game series

I like the idea of a wiki, it's much more elegant than keeping things in google docs. But I'd use it mostly for storing all the odd bits of game information like the order of operations at turn end in Civ and how that makes the 'avoid growth' trick work in granaries.

Ditto. If the RB Wiki ends up being the best primer for game mechanics (at least in English), that's a great achievement. Not only would it help current players, but it might help new players who would be intimidated about learning the game. The game is already pretty old and anything to help smooth the learning curve for new players is good for those of us who want to keep playing this game.

[dtay]

I like the redesign (though as I think you agreed with at the outset, could you at least a bit more additional styling).

I actually really like the idea of an rbwiki as well. There really isn't a good "how X works in civ 4" resource. Usually I end up having to google a ton to find some old civfanatics thread or something if I want to figure out anything complicated. Basically there's a ton of built up community knowledge around civ 4 here that as far as I know isn't located anywhere besides scattered game report threads.

[Lord Parkin]

Seems like a good idea to me, with a little bit of polish. Do you have any data on how many people visited the old front page on a daily/weekly/monthly basis?

[novice]

A wiki is a good idea.

The front page should include the RB philosophy:



(But not the graphic).

[Qgqqqqq]

Wiki is a good idea. I know I've puzzled about doing a bit of a write-up on EitB, for example, but haven't had a good idea where to put it.

[Bobchillingworth]

Yeah, the wiki could def. be a boon. Especially since the FFH Wikia is badly out-of-date and, last I checked, infested with malware.


I do hope that the community settles on either the wiki or google doc for reporting game results; I don't want to have to check both.

[T-hawk]

I like the minimalist front page, with novice's addition of the explanatory text. Sorely needed to get rid of all that outdated junk. Jush push the activity into the forum where it belongs.

I'm going to give a contrasting opinion and say that a wiki wouldn't really be very useful or used. People always say "make a wiki" so that others will do the work of assembling information for them. But I'm not convinced we have any number of willing hands to actually produce anything of significant use. It could even do harm in fragmenting information away from the forums. TLDR, I don't think a wiki would really get much attention or serve much purpose that the forums don't already do.