AboutThisSite

This web site is just a little bit different to most sites. Rather than just being a collection of information that may only be read, everything on this site may be changed by its users. Yes, this means you. Except for a couple of places where specific controls have been instituted, all members have permission to edit and change the information on the site. If you find a spelling error, you can fix it. If you find a factual error in someone's text, you can correct it, or at the very least insert a comment explaining where the error is.

Such an approach to a web site is unusual to say the least, however it makes sense when you consider the goal of this particular site. Our intention is to create a community of module builders who all cooperate to help and assist each other. To foster this goal, the ability to add and maintain information easily is critical. If the guild has to rely on a small number of administrators to keep this site up to date, we will inevitably fail to achieve our goal as the amount of information grows and becomes unmanageable for a couple of people. By extending the ability to maintain the information on the site to the entire membership of the guild, our chance of achieving our goal is greatly enhanced.

If you've read this far, I'll assume that you're actually interested in helping out and contributing to the site. If not, that's fine too, you can still read everything here and learn what you can.

So, you're all fired up and feeling ready to roll up your sleeves and get to it. Where can you start? Probably the first place is to add a user page for yourself.

• walk through process of adding user page

If you don't feel like adding a user page, that's cool. No-one says you have to. There's plenty more to do. One of the guild projects is an encyclopedia of creatures and weapons. Some members have been working on this for a while now and we could really use some more help. Have a look through the Bestiary and see if you can think of a creature that we haven't added yet. Got one? Adding a new entry is pretty easy...

• walk through process of adding a creature to the bestiary

Or maybe you're the weapons type. The Armoury is lagging behind the Bestiary and could really use some help. How about adding a weapon description?

• walk through process of adding a weapon to the armoury

Now we're cooking with gas! Feel like letting the other guild members see your ugly mug? Grab a photo image and head on over to the members' image gallery. It actually helps some people quite a lot of be able to put a face to the names.

• walk through process of uploading a member photo

So what else can you do here? There are forums, similar to the Bioware forums but a little different (if you want to post, you must first click on the "Show post form" link when reading a topic. No, I don't know why and I think it's stupid too.). There are file galleries, basically places where you can upload scripts, models or anything you have built that you want to share with other members. If you have a writing bent, the CMS section is a selection of articles written by our members. "CMS" means Content Management System and once I can figure out how to change the menu titles, I'll be changing it to read "Articles". And of course, there's the core of the whole site, the wiki.

A wiki is just a shared document editing environment. If you followed the suggestions above and tried editing the Bestiary or Armoury, you've already experienced the wiki. Like most web sites, the wiki is a series of pages linked together. Any pages may be added to the wiki so if you have anything at all that you want to say, whack it up on a wiki page. Track your module development progress. Suggest some ideas for quests. Run a page giving times for DM sessions that you're going to host. Really, you can put anything onto a wiki page, and the more you put up, the better this site becomes as an information resource.

Thanks.