collective effort on the tag pages

G'day

I have been putting in a little work writing tag pages for the games and categories that I am familiar with and fond of. I have been paying particular attention to including hyperlinks that connect different version of the same game, different games in the same setting, and different games with the same or closely related mechanics to one another or back to the most general tag. And I have started putting lists of links in the generic tags that connect back to specific instances. (Like this Traveller tag page.)

I have not been so diligent about writing informational entries, though that is important to.

Anyhow, my point is that we can't rely on Harkins to write and mark up the tag pages, nor on any one person. It's too big a job, and I don't think anyone knows enough about all the subjects for which there are tags. It is going to take a collective effort by several dozen volunteers to get a useful amount of information and an useful network of hyperlinks into the tag pages.

So I'd like to urge everyone who reads this to find half an hour this week, and use it to write the tag page for one or two of your tags.

We are not going to get any sort of uniformity of style, of course. I'd just like to exhort everyone working on the tag pages to bear in mind that the tag pages are supposed to help gamers with similar tastes find one another, so links to games with similar mechanics, setting, and genre (preferably through central tag pages for particular mechanics, settings, and genres) are probably going to be more useful than encyclopaedic descriptions. But enough information for people to decide whether they might be interested is important too.

If I might be allowed a word to the wise, the point here is for people with similar tastes to identify one another, not to maximise the sales of any game by luring in people who won't actually like it. So we want less of marketing hype and enthusiastic praise, and more of information that will empower each person do decide whether a given game or genre is worth trying or not, according to his tastes. So the information that help a reader to reach the decision that he or she doesn't want to try a game is just as important as that which makes another reader decide that she or he does want to try it. Provided, that is, that the information is accurate and the the resulting decision well-advised.

-Brett

G'day

I am particularly keen to have help getting all the science-fiction RPGs listed on the SF RPGs tag page.

-Brett

Ghetto edit:

That link ought to be SF RPGs.

Thanks for the great rallying call there. I agree that tag pages should be informational and basically neutral in point-of-view. There's going to be a lot of people for whom these pages are their first introduction to a given game, so it's important they're good.

I'm going to add more code around tag editing: a list (and feed) of recently-updated tags, a per-tag feed for changes (so you can watch ones you've edited), and a diff (changes between two versions) view to the history page.

I don't know if this deserves a new topic, but is there a way to suggest tags that should be combined (or one forwards to another, etc.)?

For example, there's "Mage the ascension" and "Mage: The Ascension." The first is just a mis-capitalization of the second. Similarly, there's "White Wolf" and "White-Wolf."

Another case is "Marvel Super Heroes," "Marvel Super-Heroes," and "Marvel Superheroes," which could be combined with "Marvel FASERIP" or "Marvel SAGA."

Those are just the ones I noticed on a first pass.

Morgan /|\ (Mrs. Roland X)

Yes, there is. On the tag page, click 'Edit' and set the 'Redirect to' on all the typo tags.

There is another, slightly trickier redirect issue with some tags, in which a punctuation mistake has resulted in two or more tag names getting concatenated. Examples include D&D; Exalted;Burning Wheel;Spirit of the Century;BattleLore, Dungeons and Dragons; RPGs;, and Star Wars and many others.

-Brett

That's not tricky, folks just aren't reading the test right under the tag box that says to separate tags with commas.

It is tricky to remedy it by using redirects.

Hi all, Well, I've managed to update the Tags on the following games.

A|State

Burning Wheel

Cold City

GDW Third World War series

John

Added brief tag descriptions for Jovian Chronicles and Heavy Gear, and added both to the SF RPGs list.

I've also updated the following tags (some not yet fully)... Advanced Squad Leader Starter Kit Conspiracy of Shadows Dead of Night Fantasy Grounds Virtual Tabletop Sorcerer

More to come... John

G'day Redag

I edited those tags of yours to include links back to SF RPG, because I figure that we want to encourage people to use the most general tags that cover genres etc. that they are interested in. I wonder whether you would like to make a tag page for the 'mecha' genre and collect a list of mecha-themed RPGs, wargames etc. the way we have started for SF RPGs?

-Brett

G'day Salar!

Nice pages!

I added links to the RPGs tag page where I was sure they belonged, but I wasn't certain about A|State and Cold City.

-Brett

Sadly, I am not especially well versed in mecha games outside of Heavy Gear and Jovian Chronicles.

You don't have to build it all. Just put what you know on the tag page, post a message on the forums asking others to chime in, and tag to back to your nascent page. What you don't know, others will fill in.

-Brett

I've added a tag page for Paranoia.

Thanks Agememos, I've update A|State and Cold City with lonks to the RPG tag. I knew I'd forgotten something. John

Grrr! Agemegos! not agememos and I've added Links, not Lonks or whatever I wrote...bad keyboard! John

The text on the Paranoia tag page is very good. It gives a clear idea of the situation in the game and the range of styles of game.

But on the other hand, it doesn't make it clear that Paranoia is a tabletop RPG rather than a MUSH, LARP, or even some sort of clever card game like Munchkin. Have to bear in mind that we have both kinds....

I totally agree, and bearing that in mind, I've gone back and altered the tags on the games I've done and linked them through to the RPG tag. I've also been cross-tagging alot. This can be seen in the GDW tag. John

Grin, should totally link to the KoDT flash parody of Paranoia as a sample of gameplay :)

http://www.hoodyhoo.com/kodt07.htm

..it doesn't make it clear that Paranoia is a tabletop RPG...

That, at least, should be fixed.

...and I've had a meddle and linked paranoia back to the RPG tag. John

I've started in on Horror, though it's really not my forte. If you're a horror game buff, please pop in and add a few more games. It'd be great if people familiar with the Call of Cthulu and World of Darkness families of games could help sort those out.

Given that there isn't yet a tag for Horror RPGs, I started listing individual games directly in Horror, rather than the approach being used for the Science Fiction versus SF RPGs tags. Should be easy enough to move them later, if there seems to be a need.

Lee-Anne

Call of Cthulhu: Delta green, Cold City and Dead of night added to the Horror tag.

John

...or even the Horror tag. Bad keyboard! Bad keyboard!

John

Hey, nice site here, thanks.

I updated the Shadowrun profile and linked Shadowrun 4E to the Shadowrun page. I put a bunch of info there. A brief (well as brief as I can :) ) description of the game and links to other sites that might be of help.

Carl