BG Wiki and Private Servers

[Spicyryan]

Sweet ass sweet—diabetic, we have a new section for private servers now on the forums. Let me help get this section rolling with a chat on the magical world of tomorrow, The Wiki and You.

For some background, as of the moment of this post. I play on the CatseyeXI (custom level 75) server. It is the only one I have so far, and I have no plans of trying others out. That being said I enjoy it, and the community/team there has been very welcoming.
How welcoming? Well after they saw me loitering in their Discord. A couple members of the team said hello in PMs, and we had a chat. I saw their preferred usage of wiki was BG, and suggested the creation of a BG section in their Discord. Which was created and has been directly dealing with one of our biggest holes on the site: old, generally irrelevant to retail, content.

Now, here is the important part though, BG Wiki is a retail wiki, and should not have private server specific edits or proprietary info being added to it.
However, while there are many differences. Private servers are at their core based on retail. Barring any bugs, for the most part quests, missions, NMs, content, and so on play the same as retail. In fact that is generally the goal.

With all that said I wanted to emphasize that while it must absolutely be kept accurate to retail. BG Wiki can be a valuable and improving resource for private servers. Specifically those capping at level 75.
For example, there are a great number of errors and to put it mildly, worthless fluff littering the only other wiki. As players from private servers come across pages on BG and either point them out or update them, the site becomes the best resource.
Pages that were previously blank or lacking in info such as the chest keys for The Goblin Tailor are now populated after direct input from a PS player. Item page posts from the Catseye Discord have lead to the Uggalepih Pendant NM being modernized. Previously empty, it now has a walkthrough complete with maps. Limit Breaks and Bastok Missions have also been improved, sometimes significantly.

All in all, I wanted to point out that private servers have a place on BG Wiki. Feel free to post here about issues, requests, ideas, etc based on your experiences on Private Servers.
For anything else Wiki related, please use the actual subsection for it on the FFXI: Everything board.

[CatsEyeXI]

Happy to have you aboard for now and glad to see you're enjoying yourself!

[Spicyryan]

Happy to have you aboard for now and glad to see you're enjoying yourself!

See, you say that now, but just give it time. Let me show you why I am banished to working in the wiki mines.

[Ksandra]

Just a note, and def not to bash bg wiki, but there is this website that focuses on era info: https://classicffxi.fandom.com/wiki/...FFXI_community

It’s sucks because bg’s layout is soooo much nicer. But I get it.


Perhaps consider allowing either an eta subsection or perhaps allowing eta info at the bottom of the page. Though in fairness I know shit about submit to the wiki nor do I have any time to volunteer for it, so feel free to defenestrate my suggestions.

[Spicyryan]

Just a note, and def not to bash bg wiki, but there is this website that focuses on era info: https://classicffxi.fandom.com/wiki/...FFXI_community

It’s sucks because bg’s layout is soooo much nicer. But I get it.


Perhaps consider allowing either an eta subsection or perhaps allowing eta info at the bottom of the page. Though in fairness I know shit about submit to the wiki nor do I have any time to volunteer for it, so feel free to defenestrate my suggestions.

Without browsing, that it looks sparse and server specific. So while it may be of use, a lot of the 75 stuff is still accurate or missing and can be made accurate on BG. Wouldn't make sense to me to not just make BG work better for this. Since most of the stuff is shared between them. Primary and secondary resources if you will.

I'm not sure what ETA means besides "estimated time of arrival" lol. If it's mashing 75 era stuff into retail pages. That's probably a no. If there is a tasteful note about how it changed since 75 then that can and frankly should be added to the bottom of a page. JP wiki does this.

I made the disclaimer about BG being retail only because there is a lot of random customization or workarounds made to a server. However I'd say almost all of the core game is exactly the same, and is the general goal. Its just mechanics being altered or NPCs being added, etc generally.

[synistar]

Likely unable to implement, but as an example this wiki - https://coppermind.net/wiki/Special:TimeMachine - has a time machine function that will display the site at chosen date states as a way to help prevent the reader from getting spoiled by book content they haven't read.

Food for thought. I have no idea how far backups go for the wiki to possibly use a snapshot.

[Koyangi]

For every instance where Ksandra said "eta," I just replaced it with "era" and it read fine.

[Spicyryan]

Likely unable to implement, but as an example this wiki - https://coppermind.net/wiki/Special:TimeMachine - has a time machine function that will display the site at chosen date states as a way to help prevent the reader from getting spoiled by book content they haven't read.

Food for thought. I have no idea how far backups go for the wiki to possibly use a snapshot.

The problem is that BG was born out of the tragedy of Clopedia fucking over the community. So we can't time machine as it just be worse or missing/blank pages.
As a concept itself I think that is a bit silly. Particularly for Clopedia where I still find incorrect information on basic shit to this day, and it was worse then.

Most important stuff like NPCs or Missions haven't changed and the stuff there like using a home points or something isn't in the way. On BG especially these mission and quest pages have improved over time. Having better walkthroughs and maps, etc added. A time machine on either site is likely more a detriment.

[Ksandra]

For every instance where Ksandra said "eta," I just replaced it with "era" and it read fine.

Yeah I typed it on my phone and it must have autocorrected.

[Spicyryan]

Sweet ass sweet—diabetic, we have a new section for private servers now on the forums. Let me help get this section rolling with a chat on the magical world of tomorrow, The Wiki and You.

For some background, as of the moment of this post. I play on the CatseyeXI (custom level 75) server. It is the only one I have so far, and I have no plans of trying others out. That being said I enjoy it, and the community/team there has been very welcoming.
How welcoming? Well after they saw me loitering in their Discord. A couple members of the team said hello in PMs, and we had a chat. I saw their preferred usage of wiki was BG, and suggested the creation of a BG section in their Discord. Which was created and has been directly dealing with one of our biggest holes on the site: old, generally irrelevant to retail, content.

Now, here is the important part though, BG Wiki is a retail wiki, and should not have private server specific edits or proprietary info being added to it.
However, while there are many differences. Private servers are at their core based on retail. Barring any bugs, for the most part quests, missions, NMs, content, and so on play the same as retail. In fact that is generally the goal.

With all that said I wanted to emphasize that while it must absolutely be kept accurate to retail. BG Wiki can be a valuable and improving resource for private servers. Specifically those capping at level 75.
For example, there are a great number of errors and to put it mildly, worthless fluff littering the only other wiki. As players from private servers come across pages on BG and either point them out or update them, the site becomes the best resource.
Pages that were previously blank or lacking in info such as the chest keys for The Goblin Tailor are now populated after direct input from a PS player. Item page posts from the Catseye Discord have lead to the Uggalepih Pendant NM being modernized. Previously empty, it now has a walkthrough complete with maps. Limit Breaks and Bastok Missions have also been improved, sometimes significantly.

All in all, I wanted to point out that private servers have a place on BG Wiki. Feel free to post here about issues, requests, ideas, etc based on your experiences on Private Servers.
For anything else Wiki related, please use the actual subsection for it on the FFXI: Everything board.

Hello, quoting the OP here for an arguably big update.

We now have a Category: Private Server page. Which is the central hub for all future pages of the sort. There is strict organization criteria currently in place for structuring a limited web of pages related to a server to keep it structured and from getting out of control. I have currently started building the root page for a server before expanding into the defined range of sub pages. So over the next couple weeks from now, check back to get a better idea of how this all looks.
Many servers already point right to BG pages with notes on their end. I figure this represents a good chance at unifying these external participants of the wiki into established infrastructure. As well as make their often disjoined presentation of information more cohesive.

With that said, there is a big bolded disclaimer about how BG is a retail wiki, and all edits should reflect retail accuracy only without any private related information or notes added outside of these Categoryrivate Server pages. When it comes to that, if you don't know then please don't do it.

Otherwise, I am pleased to announce these further efforts and cooperation and integration of the wider FFXI community into BG.

[Spicyryan]

I have been working on private server stuff on BG for a couple months now and wanted to update people on how to utilize BG for their purposes.
For an example of how you can leverage established infrastructure of the wiki without infringing upon it's retail integrity I would like to share the following examples:

• The CatsEyeXI Custom Quests page.
• The Crystal Warrior (custom content) Armor Rewards page.

The first was a table created into a template for quests. All of this could be copy pasted and adjusted. Just keep the naming scheme consistent and as demonstrated so private servers are easy to identify and very well organized.

• However, it utilizes the nation flag images, the imgicon template, the tooltip template, and reuses existing style code for flexbox, etc.
• These things were already designed and used around the wiki in general. Saving time and enhancing the presentation.

The armor rewards are simply just an existing armor mini template that anyone can use.

• It utilizes the item images all over the wiki as PSs repurpose these dats, doesn't link to the pages as they are custom, and works/looks great.

One of the greatest hurdles for a private server that wants its own wiki to support their community. Is all of the massive infrastructure that has to be built which BG has already built for nearly a couple decades now.

Unless your server is so custom that all of the traits and things for jobs were radically altered. Then all of the jobs, quests, traits, abilities, missions, etc for the most part are the same and already on BG. While you still could construct private server pages to suit a heavily modified server. It is not as effective as the more "era" based servers.
That being said CatsEyeXI for example is heavily customized, and still has a great set of pages here on BG.