Hey, everyone! There are a lot of people around here who enjoy worldbuilding, it seems, so I figured this would be as good a venue as any to start at.
I'm planning on creating a community worldbuilding project, as the title says. The idea is pretty simple; there's a wiki-like-thingy that tracks relevant information (users, locations, historical figures, events, etc.) and can be added to by any participant. People can up-vote or down-vote submitted articles based on things like how well they're written, whether they conflict with existing lore, and so on. When enough people have agreed that an article is good, it gets accepted as canon and can no longer be edited by non-moderators. Participants can discuss articles on a adjacent forum.
After spending the better part of last year learning about web programming and related things, I feel I'm competent enough to finally try my hand at a bigger project like this. (By that, I mean I already have most of the basics of the home-written wiki software working on a testing server.)
Currently you can register an account, log in and out, submit articles, edit articles, up-vote and down-vote articles, and find articles based on type. I'm still finishing up the differences between types and tracking edits, but aside from that it's nearly functional as a whole.
I have a few questions for everyone here who might be interested in contributing: what sort of features would you like to see in this? By that, I mean...
- What information about each entry should be tracked? Currently there's type (as in, for locations the type might be 'settlement' or 'landmark'), location (general regions; think of it as tracking that 'Rorikstead is in Whiterun Hold', for example), and names.
- What should be voted on for determining canon? Right now I'm thinking just writing quality and whether or not it conflicts with prior canon.
- What categories should there be for articles? Currently I have Locations, People, Events, and Creatures, but I'm sure there are more that should be there.
With the meager funds of a shiftless seventeen year old, I can pay right now for a year of web hosting once it's working. My current plan is to finish the basics and put the site up this week, if all goes well.
So. Anybody interested in building a world of storied legend together?
EDIT:
There's a website. Check it out here.