GoA Seeking Project Managers, Guild Liaisons

[Alahmnat]

Shorah!

The Guild of Archivists is currently seeking assistance in a number of areas. We are looking for story-minded individuals who are interested in taking an active role in helping to develop the role of the GoA in MORE, as well as expanding the Archive on DPWR. As always, we are also looking for detail-oriented people interested in helping with the day-to-day operation of the Guild and maintenance of the Archive.

We currently have two project management positions open: a Chat Log Project Manager and a D'ni/Surface History Project Manager. The Chat Log manager will be responsible for coordinating with the Guild of Messengers through BladeLakem (our GoMe liaison), as well as through direct communication where appropriate, to establish the specific details of how this cross-Guild project should be executed. Ability to attend GoMe meetings where the chat log project is to be discussed is ideal. The Chat Log manager will also be responsible for overseeing the chat log section of the Archive once this project is underway, and may enlist the assistance of as many other individuals as necessary to ensure that it is properly maintained.

The D'ni/Surface History manager will be responsible for heading up a Guild of Archivists effort to create a comprehensive timeline of information stretching from the earliest recorded information about the D'ni to the most recent happenings in the Cavern in MOUL. When MORE launches, this person will be responsible for ensuring that events in the Cavern are properly recorded for future reference. As with the Chat Log manager, the D'ni/Surface History manager may enlist the assistance of as many other individuals as needed to ensure that their duties are properly carried out. Further details regarding the exact plan for executing this project is available in the Guild Projects section of the DPWR forums.

In the interests of ensuring open and steady communication with the other Guilds, the GoA is also looking for individuals to act as liaisons to the other community Guilds currently in operation. We are currently in need of liaisons to the Guild of Writers, the Guild of Cartographers, and the Guild of Greeters. Volunteers for D'ni Linguistic Fellowship and D'ni Zoological Society liaisons would also be appreciated. Liaisons would be responsible for relaying information between the GoA and the target Guild regarding policies, procedures, and project concepts that relate to both Guilds. Liaisons will need to stay in touch with the leadership at the Guild of Archivists to ensure that proper information is being relayed to other Guilds regarding our stance on projects in development, and are encouraged to seek the assistance of others in the completion of their duties should any interaction become too overwhelming for them to handle (for example, the Chat Log project is to be handled by a separate individual at the GoA, rather than laying everything on the shoulders of the GoMe liaison).

Those interested in taking on any of these roles should contact Alahmnat via Private Message on DPWR.net.

[BladeLakem]

Submitted to GoMe

[Dakro]

Hey just finished reading this on the Guild of Messengers site.

Sounds like you have one job I'd be immensely interested in. I'm a very active member in the guild of writers and would be happy to act as a liaison for you guys, considering I'm ALWAYS on the GoW forums and the GoA sounds like something I would REALLY like to get involved with after hearing what it's purpose was.

Anyway, I think Tailahr told me you were somewhere in SL, what's your name there so I can contact you more personally about it?

[Alahmnat]

Actually I don't have an account in SL or There... the best way to get a hold of me at the moment is probably through PM here on the forums, or we can schedule a time to meet on AIM privately so that we can talk one-on-one. Thank you for volunteering .

Also, on a procedural note, Horatio252 has volunteered to head up the D'ni/Surface History Project. He'll be gearing up for that over the coming days/weeks and will undoubtedly be looking for assistance, so anybody willing to lend a hand, even a small one, please report to Horatio for assignments.

We just might yet get a running Guild together .

[Nalates]

Alahmnat,
I have already volunteered for liaison duty with GoA to GoC else where. And as I wrote I am most often in SL and frequently visit the UO and MOUL forums.

I've done some work with Haratio on the GoC Restored.

I've PM'd him and you about a thread at GoMa on making Myst info more available to new and novice fans.

One of the things I am looking at is getting better searches for forums and wiki's. I believe one cannot beat Google's engines. I though that Google had not indexed DPRW.net. a search on 'cartographers site:www.dprw.net' says nothing found. A boarder search using just 'cartographers guild' does not have DPRW.net in the top 30 listings. But the format of DPRW.net links should allow Google to index the site.

But as much as I search, I was surprised to find I must use a search like: cartographer site:http://www.dpwr.net/forums/ (with or without 'forums/' works).

This search begins to bring up DPRW.net pages. It is this level of technical complexity that is creating problems for new, returning, and novice computer users that is making information more difficult to find. I plan to write a 'How To' page for searching various forums. Mostly because forum searches lack the needs of many users. Trying to search on 3 letter acronyms does not work on most forums (example: ULM) and forces one to use another means of search.

So, your feedback, ideas, pointing out things I've missed, would help me decide if it is worthwhile and what may need to be included. I hope that if the idea is useful forum operators will post links near there built-in forum search links.

Ideas? Thoughts?

[Alahmnat]

I've PM'd him and you about a thread at GoMa on making Myst info more available to new and novice fans.

One of the things I am looking at is getting better searches for forums and wiki's. I believe one cannot beat Google's engines. I though that Google had not indexed DPRW.net. a search on 'cartographers site:www.dprw.net' says nothing found. A boarder search using just 'cartographers guild' does not have DPRW.net in the top 30 listings. But the format of DPRW.net links should allow Google to index the site.

But as much as I search, I was surprised to find I must use a search like: cartographer site:http://www.dpwr.net/forums/ (with or without 'forums/' works).

Not to be mean, but it does help if you spell the name of the site correctly (it's dpwr, not dprw) . Then searches for [term] site:dpwr.net return results.

The curse of the TLA being largely unsearchable has stricken DPWR's forums as well (with the added side effect that "uru" itself is also unsearchable), but this does not apply to the Archive, which operates on a separate search engine from the forums and utilizes a different set of tables in the database to store everything. Since the vast majority of the content on DPWR people would likely be searching for is in the Archive in the first place, I would suggest using the built-in Archive search to find something you're looking for if you're already here, rather than hitting up Google. DPWR's Archive search has the added bonus of being able to filter your results by tag, so I think you're more likely to get the result you're after than you are by just hitting up Google.

One thing that I think will dramatically increase the discoverability of content - and I really do need to light a fire under my own butt to get this going - is cross-linking to other sites with related material. For example, the GoG has a walkthrough for Eder Kemo, the GoC has a map of the Age, the GoA has a summary of the Age and its history, and the DZS has information on the plants and animals (well, mostly animals) found in the Age. Just going to any one of these sites won't give you the full picture, and if you don't know that there is more information to be found, finding it is going to be really hard. If each site links their page to other relevant pages in the Guild network, however, it's a lot easier to pick up more information about a specific topic.

On a similar note, if the GoA is going to be HQ for information-finding on all manner of subjects (not just Myst canon), it would likely be a good idea for any group in the community to ensure that they have a detailed article in the Archive describing their group, and with direct links to any resources, information, or projects on their own sites that might be of interest to those researching that group, in addition to the generic homepage link that most group articles provide. I generally hate foisting responsibility on others for stuff that's located in an Archive that I run, but those involved with the group are far more likely to be able to contribute useful information and links to their own articles than I would, so I encourage anyone in a Guild or other group (i.e. the DZS, DLF, SAPS, TGT, TCT, etc.) to make sure their article in the Archive is detailed and up to date. If you don't have one, by all means feel free to make one! With DPWR's fairly decent Archive search (it's better and more flexible than a forum search anyway) and a collection of detailed group summary articles in it, finding info on any project or group should be fairly easy to do. At that point, the hardest part would just be finding DPWR on the wide wooly internet. Perhaps I should prod Tweek into giving it a more prominent placement on the MOUL site .

In most other cases, I think "threads of interest" as defined by Arctic and Shevek could either easily be added as links to existing articles - since most of them pertain to an Age, concept, etc., or be added as articles all of their own (for example, the "Official Communications" tag is a great place to catalog posts from Chogon, RAWA, etc. with links to the original thread), and the rest is just news, which DPWR also covers (as do a number of other sites)... admittedly the news search here is non-existent... something I need to work on fixing eventually. Personally, I don't think a lot of the stuff under Section 4 of Arctic's threads of interest topic is stuff that is vital information to a newcomer to the community... they're often good reads, but I don't think it would be a good use of resources to devote Archivists to crawling the forums looking for highly-subjective "good read" threads to post links to (entertainingly, this could easily turn into a dreaded "list of lists" list, which would largely defeat the purpose of making information easier to find...).

For stuff like news, it would be ideal if Cyan actually gave us the ability to update the MOUL website (or did so themselves) with links to reviews, articles, or press releases related to MOUL/MORE, rather than cramming all of that stuff into the forum with the rest of the conversation. I think the majority of the information problems this community has relating to Uru just comes down to the game's own website not saying diddly-poop about what's actually going on. Compared to WoW, EVE, or any other MMO out there, MOUL's site has always kind of sucked at this. I might have to poke Tweek about more than just DPWR's prominence... though any discussions with him about the site will likely still need to go through someone actually at Cyan (since Tweek's remote "interning") before anything comes of it. *grumble*

[Nalates]

The typo point out is not mean. Unfortunately that typo carried through... DPWR.net does search a whole lot better without the typo.

Your point on using GoA search is taken. For specialized searches I certainly have to agree. Also, searching on cartographer via Google returns 3 hits and searching here returns 6 hits. So, it appears in-house search provides a better result than Google. Uncommon. This site is exceptional in many ways.

However, I cannot search the GoA from my site via your search, while I can using Google. So, the Google tools may be something to use on linking sites. (See example here - Note: eventually this link will die and a live page will replace it - see the menu there then)

Cross linking... This is something all of the guilds need to do. I need to add links on the maps page to the articles here. It is just a matter of taking the time to look things up and do it.

"threads of interest" ... I'm not a fan. Much of the information there is already in Sticky Threads else where. I don't see how another list it is easier to find than what is already there. Plus they have an 'Interest' thread that started in January '07. May be that should be added to the new threads of interest... grrr

The thread on the founding of the GoC has a very limited audience. I think it would just clutter things if added to the 'Thread of Interest'. That I linked to it from the GoC Restored article here is what I think is a logical connection. I've put links to the article here in the resources links in MOUL's forum and UO. But the only place a search using origin or founding is even likely to return a result is here. (Well... actually Google returns my post at MOUL as the top result - guess I need to tweak my site - DPWR as 3 or 5 depending on how one counts).

I agree with your perception of the problems and steps needed at MOUL. I hang in SL and run madly through the forums there. Not only are they posting what is happening on server repairs and upgrades hour by hour, but there are sections of the forums where players (well residents) and staff are talking about some things that are to change and how exactly we will implement that. Plus last night two of the staff joined us at Thend's Burning Life Exhibit in game. Plus many of the staff have in game office hours. One of the main programmers is on every Friday. So, yes MOUL could do much more. With 2 people assigned to the project not much can be done. But a few minutes a week should be possible. Plus there is a lot the moderators could do too. I'm not slamming them and want to avoid putting should's on them. Still, most other games are doing their PR way better.

For now I guess the best thing I can do to improve search here is to make more links to this site on the GoC site...