Monday 4 April 2011

Links to Wisdom wiki poll results are IN

The poll has closed, what choices have you made?
The number of votes cast was small, maximum 38 votes, but the poll, was advertised on the wiki so I'm planning to tell Alex to go with it.

Question 1: Who should police the OSR House Rule wiki for headings and structure?
38 votes cast
Alex and the Jovial Priest                                11 votes (28%)
A small number of 'authorised' moderators      11votes (28%)
No one and everyone                                       16 votes (42%)

What can we take from this result? My thought is that a slight majority wish someone to take responsibility for headings and structure (the organisation of) the wiki but this shouldn't be too dictatorial.

I propose the creation of Wiki Wardens. (Hey, stupid names are our reason for being)
Individuals who nominate themselves to regularly check on the wiki and help keep it organised. If you want to be a Wiki Warden just contact Alex or myself, and you are in, as simple as that.
Additionally ANYONE who sees something under the wrong heading, should feel encouraged to get in and fix it up, there and then, without first seeking any permission. Just do it, we all are responsible for making the wiki work.

I hope this captures the essence of the poll result most clearly.


Question 2: Who should police the OSR House Rule wiki for quality?
32 votes cast
Alex and the Jovial Priest                                2 votes (6%)
A small number of 'authorised' moderators     1 vote   (3%)
No one and everyone                                      12 votes (37%)
Create some way of rating each link               17 votes (53%)

What can we take from this result? Thankfully there is an overwhelming rejection of quality police. Alex has given suggestions for manually adding stars to rate the quality of the links and everyone should be encouraged to adopt this system when adding a link. A more sophisticated system is beyond us at the moment.
Wiki Wardens should not delete any link, unless it is clearly not relevant to OSR (moving links to a different position is however part of the responsibility for the Wardens). Everyone should be discouraged from deleting links, at least until the wiki is being overwhelmed with similar links on a particular topic. Then we may need to do this poll again.

Question 3: What is your preferred name for the OSR House Rule wiki?
28 votes
Links to Wisdom                                                         17 votes (71%)
Temple of Wisdom                                                       7 votes (25%)
Something Else (leave a suggestion in comments)        1 vote (3%)

Only 1 other suggestion was made in comments and that was for 'The OSR House Rules Wiki' and I therefore added a second poll (some 36 hours later which ended at the same time as the main poll)

Question 3a: Is OSR House Rule Wiki a better name than either Links to Wisdom or Temple of Wisdom?
18 votes
Yes      4 votes (22%)
No       14 votes (77%)

What can we take from these results? Links to Wisdom is the clear favourite. Alex will be pleased as it saves him a few hours of having to migrate the site to another name and saves us all adjusting our links.

Question 4: Does the OSR House Rule Wiki need a logo?
30 votes
Yes      21 votes (70%)
No        9 votes (30%)

What can we take from this result? A clear yes for a logo see Daddy Grognards Design a Logo Competition. Those who have sent in submissions with a different name for the wiki, might wish to send in a second entry using Links to Wisdom as the name.

Question 5: If there is a logo competition to choose a logo for the OSR House Rule Wiki, who should judge?
31 votes
A select group of the OSR's biggest bloggers?     4 votes (12%)
Everyone                                                              27 votes (87%)

What can we take from this result? Though I personally would have liked to see James M take part as a judge, the result is overwhelming against any form of elitism. Daddy Grognard is planning an open poll for the logo competition.

And that's the poll closed.


As a final note I just want to share the superb conclusion I had to my Keep on the Borderlands, 3 session introductory campaign from Saturday night, that I had been running for my friends, all D&D novices. They were making their escape from the 'main cave complex' (vague to avoid spoilers) victory in sight, when the orcs of the canyon sprung their trap. You can't keep coming back and back, killing and robbing, without the denizens eventually getting their act together.

Inspired by Peter Regan from Oubliette Magazine's superb Halfling Proof Fence adventure I created a similar themed escape from the canyon conclusion for the campaign. You should have seen the surprise on my players faces when I laid 24 sheets of paper all carefully taped together and placed their characters at the blind canyon end with many orcs blocking their way out of the canyon and blocking their route to freedom.

It worked fantastically, for excitement that is. It cost one character's life, and two were captured. But three escaped with the treasure, including powerful objects of evil, which they immediately gave up to the NPC who had been playing them from the very beginning. Cue, evil DM laugh. The Keep fell to the forces of chaos soon after...

PS I was struggling to work out how to make the scanned map from the module so large. If you put the jpg into Excel then you can expand over multiple sheets of paper. Simple. After a few single sheet print efforts I had expanded the squares to 1 inch size. Perfect!

2 comments:

  1. I have to try that excel jpg thing. hope it works with open office, too...

    ReplyDelete
  2. I only just stumbled on this. That's a really good use of the concept. I've got another idea for a similar type of adventure that involves a chase through some catacombs, but that will probably be in Oubliette 7 or 8.

    ReplyDelete