First, a minor point of administrivia that shall be clarified now, as it came up today.

Entry titles that begin with minor articles such as "A", "An", "The" and the like shall have said minor articles disregarded for purposes of alphabetical classification. This means "The Alabaster Fountain" is filed as if it were "Alabaster Fountain, The", making it an "A" article, not a "T" article. This was probably obvious to everyone, but now it's in writing.

Less obvious is that "Falkensburg" shall also be ignored when alphabetizing articles. This is because we are writing about the town, so a large number of things will start with that name. Thus "The Falkensburg Museum of Art" counts as being an "M" article.

Having established that, two questions have come to my attention in the last day, and I'm bringing them here for open discussion.

Item The First: The nature of Lexicon gameplay has players NAMING (but not writing) articles that do not yet exist in the game. Each article you write must link to two other articles (featuring later letters) as references.

Once these articles have been named, they MUST be written before any unnamed articles can be started. This is all fine and well. However, we do have the possible situation of two (or more) players wanting to write the same article. How shall we determine who actually gets to write the article, and who must choose another?

The current thought is that whoever wants an article can simply start the page for it in advance, and simply note that they are calling dibs. First come, first serve. Wikidot's timestamping and edit locks will ensure that we can always tell who go there first.

Is this fine by everyone? Does anyone have a different idea? Also, should there be any kind of limit on how far in advance you can call dibs on an article? Or is any predefined article fair game?

Item the First, Second Verse: Because pre-named articles must be written before new articles can be created, how can we resolve conflicts where nobody is willing to write a predefined article, instead preferring to make one up? Because these articles must be written, we need some way of assigning them to players, even if they would rather not. Any ideas on how to handle this situation?

Item the Second: Shall players be permitted to write more than one article for any given letter? Currently there is no provision for a player writing more than one article per letter. However, some busybodies have expressed interest in doing so.

I'm of the opinion that if a player has completed their articles for the week already, and is caught up on any past stubs, that they may then write ONE new article per week, using a previously completed letter. This means that during the GH turn, said busybody could write an extra article, but only for A through F.

The question is... should we have this? Yes/no?

If yes, how should it be regulated? As above? You have a better idea?

Would "extra credit" articles be subject to the same linking rules (one past, two future?) or some variant on this (no linking requirements... or may only link to existing or named articles, past and future, or something else?)

DISCUSS! Otherwise Boris will be forced to spank you.

Wikipedia allows all of its users edit virtually any page.

We're not Wikipedia.


By default, wikidot's wiki software permits any user to edit any article. That's not going to be changed - all players will be allowed to set tags for any article, and will be allowed to add links to existing words in others' work. However, unless explicitly stated otherwise by the original author, all signed articles and character biographies are works of single authorship.

In practice, this means that only the original author of a signed article is allowed to add or remove content, revise their wording, change article names and titles, and otherwise edit the content of their character's signed articles, or their biography.

If you're writing a signed article and you'd like for others to be allowed to edit it, you may add a note to say that the article is editable by everyone.

Consider this in-character. In academia, reputation can be everything; a scientist like Wickham is wholly unlikely to allow a cultist like Martellus free reign to edit something signed with his own name. On the other hand, an article authored by the group as a whole - and not signed by any particular character - is likely to be passed around and edited until it settles into a form that all the characters are happy with.


In summary:

• If an article is marked as 'editable' by its original author, or is unsigned, you may:
• Add new content
• Revise the wording of existing ideas
• Change the article name
• Add links
• Add page tags
  
  
• If a signed article is not marked 'editable' by its original author, you may:
• Add links using existing words only
• Add page tags
  
  
• You may not, at any time:
• Remove ideas or concepts from others' articles
  

Additionally, it's strongly advised that you fill in the 'description' box whenever you edit an article in any way; this makes it much easier to keep track of revisions.

Thanks in advance for your cooperation. And now, we return to your regularly-scheduled making things up.

The wiki for our game is live here. To join, you'll need a password; I'll post it here shortly, in a f'locked entry, so that you can actually join.

You're all encouraged to read this article, which has the semifinal form of the rules (or, if everyone's happy with it, the final form of the rules). Also, if you've never used Wikidot before, there's a short introduction to page editing.

For now, the game's at a kind of unofficial turn zero - a chance for everyone to join the wiki, play with the system some, and come up with scholarly characters through whom to squabble. As additional context for the characters, and as a sandbox for the wiki, turn 0 is going to be writing articles about the university itself.

And I think that's it for the moment; now to post that password.

But, hopefully, this is the last one we'll need for now. The genre/theme stuff is snipped from the second poll; I've pretty much taken all the things that can be happily blended together and given them tickyboxes. I imagine we'll probably use whatever elements of that set are popular, though it's certainly possible to add things (or leave them out) in play.

So! The poll.

Poll #1125461 Lexicon Poll III: Revenge of the Tickybox
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 20

Players for Lexicon Game

Genre/Theme Elements for Lexicon Game

Ideas about specific ways to do this are welcome in comments - after all, the sooner we come up with something everyone's happy with, the sooner we can play. Vote, discuss, and remember to join the comm.