Suggestion Chaos Wiki - The Future of the Codex

[Ugoto Chivaro]

A wiki would be a better system for both the Codex and the Factory. This ordeal of managing everything through forum threads and individually reviewing and approving them and moving them has only become more cumbersome as this website has grown. The Factory is apparently so overburdened that there is no longer any capacity to update or archive anything already approved.

If we are looking for a more streamlined and easily accessible/approachable process to creating lore and technology, some manner of wiki system is going to be the way to do that. It would have to be based on an honor system. Disputes would be resolved by Judges as they're detected or reported - NOT by manually reviewing every page. This would, theoretically, be less work for the Judges unless this community is more report-happy than I think.

The main obstacle to the wiki coming here is the cost of implementation and maintenance. I think the whole thing is more technically complicated and time-consuming than most people are giving it credit for. There are not nearly enough people who are proficient in the back-end side of things that can support that kind of transition.

 

[Kaila Irons]

I'm actually not a fan of outright removing the codex and factory because those two things absolutely require oversight to prevent abuse and frankly they are one of the things that makes chaos unique from other rps even if certain factory subs can be frustrating.

My hope in a wiki was actually to make codex subs easier to find and an easy way to see the history left by dominions and invasions, as those rarely ever get codex subs using the history template. The only time I have personally seen it was when I codified the shadow crusade myself so I had smth to point at when ppl ask me what Apollyon The Betrayer and Aloy Vizsla did while the MU was around.

(if nothing else please take this as your cue to codify faction history and threads, whoever's reading this xD)

 

[Valiens Nantaris]

The Factory is apparently so overburdened that there is no longer any capacity to update or archive anything already approved.

This is factually incorrect. Please do not state supposition as proven fact.

This change was not made because of being overburdened, but as a way of versioning items. It was also as a way of changing to the new factory templates deemed unnecessary.

This would, theoretically, be less work for the Judges unless this community is more report-happy than I think.

Since you don't see how many reports actually happen, you're not in a position to have a good insight here. Suffice to say, this issue does come up.

 

[Tefka]

I'd honestly wager the majority of reports ARE Factory/Codex related, tbh.

Invasion seasons change that, but we're not in Invasion season rn. In fact, Majors have dwindled as we approach summertime (as is the usual), so they're "losing the narrative" I guess and smaller issues like "this factory sub does meet x requirements" etc take the limelight.

Honestly we don't get a lot of reports period, compared to like, 2016 or 2021. But per capita, I'd wager Factory/Codex reports rule the stead.

 

[Tefka]

A wiki would be a better system for both the Codex and the Factory.

I get where you're coming from, but what you're really saying is "more categorization and organization" is a better system. A wiki brings things by default, but as demonstrated by the Factory's upgrades, we can meet and challenge that line of thought.

I'd wager a majority of you making these arguments just do so from the standpoint of theorycrafting, and have minimal experience in using the Factory's filtering system to sift through items.

 

[Jack Sandrow]

My two creds:

Having a Wiki at all feels to me like feature creep and bloat. We can absolutely make it work, adapt it to the site, and have it become part of the new normal, but making a wiki now, after 13+ years of Stuffᵀᴹ being created, is going to require a Sisyphean workload.

It could be a bit of projection, but I'll wager that while 90% of the people on the site interact with 90% of the site, each person interacts with maybe 5% of the site total. Some people do the Faction thing, other people never touch the Factory. There are those who religiously upload weekly Newsletters, and those who tool their Codex submissions to the point of being sacred. [Sidebar: the fact that Codex stuff is so quickly and easily 'auto-approved' is because the Codex submissions on the whole are used less as PvP/PvE content and far more as lore-couching for storytelling. There's other reasons, I'm sure.]

If we have a wiki in addition to the Factory & Codex, unless we make working with it as mandatory as reading and abiding by the Rules (which some people apparently don't treat as mandatory????) then we have to accept that a lot of people just aren't going to use it, and are going to keep making new content in the Factory or Codex without giving half a damn. We can hardly ask anyone to become the Chaos edition of Steven Pruitt, so even if we're not going to actually supplant the Factory and/or Codex with a true honest-to-god wiki, the undertaking we would all have to do even for a burgeoning (and functional!) wiki would be prohibitive to all but the most enthusiastic people.

If we have a wiki as a replacement for the Factory and Codex, then new people on-boarding to the site are going to see a wall of text and immediately nope out of having anything to do with it. They're going to make a character, give them a lightsaber, and not create anything new. Because why should they have to do 3 hours of homework on the Chaos edition of a purple-red-aquamarine-silver lightsaber crystal that was referenced twice and used once by DELETED USER? And people who already do Factory and Codex stuff are going to have even more work to do, to mind link-rotting and loose threads and whatever else happens on the back end of Wikipedia (or god forbid fandom.com).

If we do decide on a wiki at all, a true genuine wiki, then we're going to need to add a moderation team. We can say 'community-driven' but there will have to be some kind of final say or it'll end up as an editing war. If we want to have it in addition to the Factory and Codex, we'll need to acknowledge that many people won't even bother with it, and won't care how much you glare at them through the screen. We can have it as a 'new standard' for the site, and then we have yet more stuff to moderate.

My personal opinion is that this creates an extremely front-heavy task that will require constant upkeep by a dedicated team ad infinitum even after we've caught up to the 'present'. If we add the wiki to what we have, it will be out of date for irl months (maybe years) before it gets close to where we are now. If we supplant what we have with an all-encompassing wiki, it will require either shutting the codex and factory down for, again, irl months/years to catch up, or actively editing and re-editing the wiki for the months/years it will take to prepare to replace both Factory and Codex. So if we decide to do this, then sure, what the hell. I'd be on board and all-in for my stuff and a lot of the Codex stuff, but I can hardly imagine that there's another 4.999% of the site willing to put in the hard work for the ᶜᵃⁿⁿᵒᵗ ᵉᵐᵖʰᵃˢᶦᶻᵉ ᵉⁿᵒᵘᵍʰ years.

 

[Tefka]

Satire aside. I actually like the idea of a wiki, but i would not want to be the one responsible to maintain it and i disagree about codex staff or RPJ or any staff in general being the ones too. The association of staff with a wiki would set precedence on some events, narratives and perspectives over others. Would come off as more "official", if there is such a thing in a writing hobby, If a wiki was ever made, why not have it be made by someone else ( Darth Empyrean ...just sayin you suggested it, im sure some others would assist in the project) and also have the wiki be completely non-congruent. Aka, Its gonna have multiple of the same story and narrative with different outcomes and perspectives and none of them are more or less "correct".

Everyone go like this post for being the most relevant Exhibit A image staff will use in its wiki discussions thanks

Good work to the author