Need Feedback - Map Maker Documentation - Where to consolidate?

LaFayette

Should we have pinned forum posts for map maker documentation, or put the content on webpage?

Forum pinned content has the problem it is only controlled by original poster. We can solve that by agreeing admins should update original post to keep it up to date.

Forum post may not work well with long content. We have all of the following to document:

I'm personally leaning towards hosting all documentation on webpage, then having one pinned topic with a link.

Frostion

It would be great if we could put all mapmaker's help at one place. I hope it will be a place where there is easy access for people to make contributions and discuss, add, update guides or sections of guides.

If it was the forum, could guides not just be posted by a user named "Admin" or "TripleA", of course requiring an admin to update, so that many people can comment and suggest changes, but only a few can step in and make the requested changes?

If guides were posted at the website I would say that it was essential to have links to a discussion thread or something similar, not only for people to make contributions, but also to where people could ask questions concerning the process the guide describes.

Discussions should be easily accessed. I would think that if it the discussions were here at the forum, the help would be given relatively quick.

Another argument for having discussions here at the forum would be, that after all, one would expect potential mapmakers to register at the forum if they dig TripleA so much that they try to make maps.

LaFayette

@frostion thanks for feedback. Keeping content within one framework/website is pretty compelling.

Question is almost boiled down to having one pinned post with a link to content that is managed in this kind of view: https://github.com/triplea-game/triplea-game.github.io, vs admins keeping up to date the latest post.

Good point on questions/discussion, one post would not be ideal for that.

One question, what do we do with the stuff that is oversized for a forum post, particularly noting: https://github.com/triplea-game/triplea/blob/master/docs/map_making/map_and_map_skin_making_overview.md

Something like that makes me think we would want a wiki for the documentation (maybe that is the answer instead of github files or pinned forum post?)

Looking forward to continuing discussion, I'm eager to hear what people think, at this point it seems there are a few questions:

does map maker documentation get hosted somewhere else, potentially a wiki in which case we have one pinned post that references that location and is place for questions
or do we have pinned posts for each documentation, perhaps for something that does not fit on a few pages like the map making overview, we can create one pinned post and link to where it is.

(note on wiki, github hosts them with each repo, we could use https://github.com/triplea-game/triplea/wiki)

prastle

@LaFayette My only worry about the webpage idea is once again we will have scattered posts. Users and probably most map makers will post here. Then we hope the webpage gets updated?

LaFayette

In general I agree, pinned posts here is pretty ideal. Looking at the content in question: https://github.com/triplea-game/triplea/tree/master/docs/map_making, posts keep seeming not appropriate. I would not want to be the author of that post and on the hook for tracking update suggestions and making sure things stay updated. Content like that needs a wiki or some way that the full community can edit.

A suggestion for it, we could create a forum post called "map making guides" and then include the above link to help people find the documents.