Wiki, is it worth it?

[Chris]

Do you use wiki in your game? Do you know of games that use it successfully as means of providing information how to play the game? How do you evaluate it?

I have mixed feelings, so far I saw all game wikis to be disabled (password protected), probably due to spam or other moderation problems.

What kind of wiki "engines" you recommend?

[Nox]

OGame uses Wiki and it seemed alright
(well...when I think about it 'm not sure if it was official, probably not)

Well, wiki doesn't have to be freely editable, right?

[Chris]

Well, wiki doesn't have to be freely editable, right?

Well... It would be nice, I suppose? I would definitely want my oldest and most respected players to participate in creating it. Also there should be some community sections like clan pages and such, making it widely editable would be the most convenient.

Is there some wiki with a more advanced permission system? The one I have just have one password for all users...

[gnoh]

Not really IMO,  
Turns out that most people don't actually bother reading the wiki's the best way  IMO to guide players would be through in game help systems.   The only case I see for using wiki's is for describing more detailed aspects of game play, for example formula's could go there as they aren't necessary for playing but a 'power' user may find them useful when they have got past the initial 'how to play' phase and moved into the how do I become better.

[Murzim]

If you intend to really bother with the wiki, or get people to bother with it, it is the best solution imo.
Check this game wiki here: http://wiki.the-reincarnation.org/
They have done a very good work and they even changed the links of in-game helpfiles to the wiki. And they used to have a very extensive manual.

[Winawer]

I'd say it's worth a try.

[Chris]

I installed mediawiki and... please, tell me I don't know how to use google and there is some real admin panel somewhere which allows changing settings without access to FTP...

Found this statement on mediawiki forum "The ACP is attached to the end of the Special Page. It is 4 links. If you want to delete a user, do it from the database. ". Please, please, please, tell me someone on this planet made a full blown admin panel for this.

[pixlepix]

I find that a wiki works very well, look at AE. Without the wiki, it would be almost unplayable

[pampa]

is too late to talk about this topic?

I am at my first experience with mediawiki, and I have several issues about his management

i take it "as is", and I must say it is not so bad.

I believe that an in-game help system is often the best solution (if not too invasive, I hate too many tips and informations when i join a new game) but it is also long and complicated to deploy and manage, so now I'll try to put many links "ad hoc" in the game that refer to the specific wiki page.

In any case the "game documentation", or "manual" or "help", is a hot topic and I'd like to have other opinions on how much importance do you give to it:  (maybe i have to open a new thread?)

P. S. The Wiki of Minecraft is also useful and well done: www.minecraftwiki.net

[Chris]

Yeah, a bit too late (if you meant the original purpose of the topic, which was to help me decide; but it is still not too late for others)

I did it, it was not worth it. It was not terrible, but still not worth it. I could imagine several scenarios where it could work, but on average and for a typical game - waste of time. I would say, do it only after you reach 10,000 daily active players (or if you plan to integrate it very well and has some tricks behind your sleeves), I doubt the lower number of players will make them edit the wiki as they supposed to. Plus, if you ever go multilanguage it will make all wiki systems permanently unusable (if it is English only you can at least check it yourself and remove the outdated content).