Talk:FAQ

I feel that the listing of the IF Comp is exclusionary. But before I go off and change the thing, I'd like to see what others thought first. I propose putting in a competitions section to replace it, and then limk to all the contests out there.

I also feel, on a side note, that we shouldn't talk about the age of commercial IF as being over. 1893 and Future Boy have dispelled that myth quite handily. -- Aurora

Well, Aurora, my take on the FAQ is that it's a problematic page no matter what is done with it. It wants to be both succinct and authoratative, which are goals at odds with each other. It will either focus on one thing (like the IF Comp to the exclusion of all other comps), or become so bulky with information, it will no longer be succinct. The best compromise that I can think of is to include a 'see also' line at the end of each section to show that there is more to a given topic than the FAQ currently suggests. Unfortunately, my suggestion can't eliminate the inherit biases that are implicit within the FAQ. I would like to hear what others might have to say on how wide a scope the FAQ should be.

As to your suggestion that the age of commercial IF is not over, I think you are mistaken. Current sales of IF is miniscule, and organized by the authors themselves. It's little more than vanity press. This is nothing like how it used to be, when Infocom was selling millions of copies of their games. Yes, IF games will continue to be sold here and there, (and yes, I haven't forgotten Malinche's efforts), but it's still fair to say that the 'age' is over. -- David Welbourn 13:53, 11 Feb 2005 (Central Standard Time)

David is right that the FAQ is problematic and inherently biased, just as all the text he has added to ifwiki is also problematic and inherently biased. That's okay; the world is full of very useful pieces of writing, some of them collaborative, that are problematic and inherently biased. It really shouldn't be tough to provide short, useful answers to the common questions that newcomers have.

It seems to me that the IF Comp is the competition that is most widely known beyond the IF community, so I don't see any problem with having a question about it. Of course, there are other compeitions, and it's worthwhile to mention this. A useful addition to the "IF Comp" question in the FAQ might briefly mention the existence of other competitions and link to Category:Competitions. But you're welcome to make whatever changes you think are appropriate.

--Nm 00:27, 13 Feb 2005 (Central Standard Time)

Age and links...

To really know if something is over and will never return requires a perfect knowledge of the future. None of us has that, thus, we should be careful in issuing such pronouncements. There's no need to get into "my crystal ball is better than yours" arguments, either. I'm here to encourage the genre to grow in any way it can and to not establish boundaries for it, financial or otherwise. Fundamentally, it's a negative thing for the genre, because it makes IF look as though it was end-of-lifed and all that's left are the death spazms. So I say this -- let's not pronounce the patient dead, especially in a public wiki devoted to it. It's bad form.

I like the idea of linking to the contest page.