Originally Posted by
Yrusama
Mr. Moose, is there anywhere else you've been putting this stuff?
I've been keeping my records, but a lot of it isn't ready for reading YET for many reasons, including a lack of information about specifics, the fact that many lines of text have been changed (some multiple times), slight changes in canon, and important connections/explanations that are still under NDA.
In a rare combination, I'd like to try to speak a little as Anonymoose (opinionated, sarcastic, player) and a little as Anwyll (objective, professional wiki-team member).
Why it's not in the wiki yet is a complicated (but easy to understand) issue that I'm sure Gahoo, for one, will appreciate my laying out the novel for.
The Philosophy
Individual records and database websites are quick and easy(ish), but are at the mercy of their stewards and often only temporarily useful; wikis are forever, their mistakes are easily fixed, and the status quo is fluid; but building them properly takes a great deal of time. For perspective, FFXI came out in 2001 and XIclopedia wasn't the go-to until years later, after the databases and hybrids were left by their stewards. Today, the team that built XIclopedia abandoned it for something, simply put, more and they built GamerEscape. XIclopedia's reputation is still such that some people still think it's the "official wiki" ... over GE. (Irony.)
The Issue
Wiki's are two-faced. One face is seen by the average user - they click the "[Edit]" tab and there's a row of places to put information in simple terms. "Price = 100", "Genus = Spriggan", etc. The other face is seen only by the below-zero percent of users who know how to build the constructs that make editing the wiki as easy as clicking [Edit] and writing the word "spriggan" and suddenly there's an image of a spriggan and that mob appears on the list of spriggans, and the things they drop are added to a list of area resources and so on and so on.
Final Fantasy XIV has changed its core foundation so drastically and so often that the few of us capable of managing the back-end are so frequently immersed in the the infrastructure that we don't add the minute facts very timely. Usually, we would rely on casual editors for that, but XIV's base has been both small and fractured. This fracturing, on top of the game's inactivity, have taken a toll not only on our editing economy, but our fiscal as well.
Right now we are in the process of building back-end mechanics for the everything that will be changing in ARR as well as "archiving" the pages relating to 1.X that are lost to the aether. Moreover, I, personally, am spending most of my time building the foundation of Loremonger, which I hope will be a resource in the future for properly adding information that can't simply be transferred in from the shorter-lifespan databases as well as citing that information on regular pages.
It's all a matter of building community. The troubles XIV has gone through have made me (and this is subjective, so take it as you will and try not to turn this into a resource debate) feel like GE has the most FF-focused and future-sustainable site and staff, so even though it'll take some time to get going properly, especially with the limited base, that's where I'll be. There are alternatives, but often they end up trying to cater to many games and end up being the Jack-of-All-Trades and Master-of-None.
IN THE MEANTIME, FEEL FREE TO ASK OR REQUEST ANYTHING
If you want a specific topic's page built up ahead of time, let me know and I'll put it in the top tiers of my To-Do list. If there's an in-game concept you're curious about, feel free to just ask in a thread here as we saw with Nym, and feel free to chat with me in this thread or even in GE's forums.
As long as FFXIV is around, Anonymoose will be around.
I'm sure Anwyll will be around long after.