Talk:Main Page

Canon Discussion
Should or should we not include game characters, game events or game lore into this wiki? Because, as it is written on your canon-page, Ed Greenwood doesnt consider any game stuff canon, while another author does (darn, when do we get equality between games and books :( ? ), and i dont know what your opinion in this case is... --Empty other 21:39, 1 October 2006 (UTC)


 * In my opinion, source books and officially listed novels should be considered canon whereas game stuff should not. This is because the games take entertainment as their number one priority and have more licence to twist the Realms in their own way. I don't see any problem in including non-canon stuff on this wiki as long as it is marked as such so that there's no confusion. Fw190a8 01:22, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Forgotten Realms
Wikipedia:WikiProject Forgotten Realms and the subordinate Forgotten Realms pages contain lots of info, especially on Drizzt, entries on each country/big city/main character - is it the plan to move that info here? Poulsen 14:42, 23 Nov 2005 (UTC)


 * As it is already on Wikipedia, what would be the point of moving it here?  &rArr;  Jarlaxle  Artemis   06:25, 18 February 2006 (UTC)


 * As I see it, the content is so marginal, that the vast amount of FR articles on Wikipedia are too small and narrow for a general article, and would be better suited in a speciality encyclopedia like this one. Poulsen 04:37, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

That project appears to be dead or barely alive because I cannot see any recent activity on their project pages. I agree with Poulsen about the majority of articles being better suited to this specialist encyclopedia although special care might be needed with articles that will appeal to a non-Forgotten Realms reader, such as articles about the FR computer games. I think such articles should exist in both places. In response to Jarlaxle, I think that the point of duplicating (rather than moving) information here from Wikipedia and expanding upon it is that readers are able to access all FR information in one place with less chance of navigating onto more general articles. Fw190a8 04:37, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Hello,
 * I am the initiator of this Project. I did a lot of work including all the countries all by myself (or almost). Then Poulsen, Jarlaxle and others came an did a lot of work too, so I would be hard-pressed to call this project dead! It just happens that I am mainly linking to new official materials from wizards.com (Wikipedia’s policy [and common sense] doesn’t allow copyrighted material). So, every time Wizards publishes a new article, I link it in the right entry. I don't want to enter anything non-canon, invent stuff and so on and, of course, non-copyrighted material means nothing from the printed material may be added here. Finally, I also asked for help in various places such as Wizards’s forum with barely any answer
 * It is just that, considering the marging we have (official and publicly available source), this is hard to get better. Especially considering how many people are working on it. Do you know how much time it takes to write semi-detailles entries for a hundred countries, when you are but a handful of people? So, no, this Project is not dead. David Latapie 07:58, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

I have no problem at all handling over the crown of “king of FR site” ;-). What I would be annoyed with would be that some informations on the Wikipedia are not reused in this Wiki. In other words, I ask you to migrate all the content from Wikipedia here - for instance, getting some information about Realms)] was a hard task to do and I would be sad if the information does not appear on this wiki. The same goes for the rough geopolitical sorting in a table. I quite proud of it and think it would be a nice addition to your work. Finally, if there is any licencing problem (I don't think so, since both Wikipedia and Wikia are Jimbo Wales-initiated), I give you full authorisation, as the main author, to use my content (browsing the history for each article on Wikipedia will tell you what I wrote). Please steal me! (I know it is not stealing and that I am not the only one participating, but you got the point) .David Latapie 04:13, 11 December 2006 (UTC) When it comes to colours, there is an ergonomi rule : no more than seven. Do you plan to ultimately have no more than 7 regions for the locations? Even if the answer is yes, consider some other thing: how will the colours be understood by the reader? Will they see them a pure decoration of the fact that colours changes from one country to the other will confuse them? My suggestion: OK for up to seven colours, but any colours should come with a small text, like
 * Well, when I inquired to the status of the project the project had not seen an edit since january, and this was in april, and it would take a month or so more before a reply was posted, so at that point in time I would say it's fair to say the project was dead/inactive - if it has indeed revitalized then that's of course good news, because as you say - it's a big project for a few people, and we share the same kinda problems you guys at Wikipedia do (except getting our articles deleted by other people :P).
 * I agree it's hard to write detailed articles without breaching copyrights, but I'd much prefer shorter articles with a few references to source books, than some of the pages on wikipedia where 60% of the pages vertical length is exterior links (some of which I've found to be long dead, or spam links). Zerak-Tul 12:21, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Continuing on the long-time-between-post-style.
 * edit: the above reply was not meant to be offensive (I know by experience I sometimes appears insulting while it is not my intention. The “crown of ‘king of FR site’” was tongue-in-cheek. I sincerely gives you my blessing for this.David Latapie
 * Haha, I did laugh when I read that, David! The way you phrase it is quite amusing. The point here is that we are creating an encyclopedic reference to the Forgotten Realms, not making source material freely available, or copying someone's work. The main purpose is to make as complete a reference as possible. When we make use of the term 'the best FR wiki' we should be referring to making the best possible encyclopedia and reference, not trying to 'beat' anyone else. Fw190a8 12:50, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Hey David, I really like your Geopolitical-area-tablethingy (Yes, I believe that's the proper technical wiki-term ;)) and I agree with you in that I'd make a good addition here. Personally I'd colour code every region, with for example the coldlands block having a lightblue/teal colour, and then the Country Infobox templates for nations/areas in that category having the same coresponding colour, thoughts? (Just to clarify, I don't want to colour the entire template, just the bit that is currently a grey/black bar (we wouldn't want the wiki looking like it was attacked by a kindergarden with their blue pastels)). Zerak-Tul 20:17, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Continuing on the long-time-between-post-style (yes, I know I already said it.

Coldlands Pelvuria Coldlands Reghed Empires of the Sand Anauroch (these being examples)
 * the idea being that the colour alone would confuse more than help.David Latapie 04:06, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I had a vision of having a load of portal pages, and for the Forgotten Realms regions (and what is in them), having a Geography portal, something like the one on Wikipedia. Fw190a8 07:35, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Users
According to Special:Statistics there are over 7000 registered users, why are so few contributing? O_o Zerak-Tul 14:56, 21 March 2006 (UTC)
 * I believe that list to be those editors who contribute to http://www.wikia.com as a whole. As far as I'm concerned, the Forgotten Realms wiki has only 18 editors.

Ah, that explains a lot ;) Zerak-Tul 08:54, 23 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Still, I wish that they were editing as well. Would save a helluva lot of time. Seems Poulsen & that are inactive on wikipedia too though.

Yeah, I posted to see if they were active (FR Project on Wikipedia), but no reply yet, hehe pretty good indication that they're not, too bad Poulsen isn't more active, he seems to know a fair bit, and he's danish like me :P Hmm, does any play/have played Neverwinter Nights? Zerak-Tul 21:50, 23 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Yeah I saw on that page. Posted there too. As for NWN, I've played and completed all 3 campaigns. Unfortunately WotC cancelled the Neverwinter Nights novel so everything is non-canon.
 * Played only the original NWN. Yes, it's a real shame we don't have anything canon on recent neverwinter night events--DavidAlexandrov 21:38, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Not so sure actually. The opportunity to kill several major NPCs includng Obould, Klauth, Elaith Craulnober, etc. As well as Menzoberranzan being taken over by the Valsharess in HotU. Would, at the very least, throw a spanner into R.A. Salvatore's works.
 * Well, i forgot thoose details. I would not really accept that Klauth gets killed by a 16-17 lvl adventurer, but i think that the neverwinter - luskan war could have been made canon.
 * That's why you had to weaken Klauth first if you wanted to kill him. It's much less of a challenge if you get rid of 3/4 of his hp first, right?

According to the stats page today, there are only seven active wikians on here! That's a tall order for so few people to completely document 35 years of the Greenwood's overactive imagination! Fw190a8 06:52, 8 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Hmm, we had I think four anons (IP address users) edit today, new users or do people just forget to log in? Fantastic if it's the former, if it's the latter it's still good to see that people are active :) Zerak-Tul 21:17, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Chosen of Mystra, Seven Sisters, etc
I updated the pages on Shar, Mystra, the Chosen of Mystra and the Seven Sisters. I still have to do a page for Sylune and Storm, but I have made a lot of progress.

I believe the above was written by Chiefsci who has made some great contributions! There is an extremely large amount still to do so it's best not to worry about "finishing" any time soon but just keep adding, even if writing stubs. Could you please sign and date comments with the four tildes ( ~ )? Thanks! (The irony of me forgetting to sign and date an addition asking someone to sign and date their additions!) Fw190a8 06:53, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Redesign
Please go take a look at this alternative to the current main page and give your 2 cents in the talk page, thanks :) Zerak-Tul 18:56, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
 * There were no objections so I went ahead with this, "Be bold" and all that ;)Zerak-Tul 20:13, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

hi!
August 22, 2006 just saying "hi!" since i just joined, so...HI! anyway, since this place is still growing I let some friends who know a bunch about Forgotten Realms and stuff about this site. I've just been filling in information where I can, last night I tried to get some of the pages that didn't exist, but had links to anyway made just so they could be there and be expanded a lot(hopefully). just to point out for anyone who might want it, i put in a monster template when i was working on the beholder page Template:Monster well, again "hi!" and see ya'round! -Elessar

PS: oh, btw, Zerak, the alternative looks pretty cool!

Welcome Elessar, always good to see someone as active as you join! :), as you have probably noticed this wiki is still in it's dawn age, seeking editors, so thanks for letting your friends know about it too. Thanks for the template, but I think it is too detailed - if we start giving detailed statistics for all the nasties of the realms we're starting to infringe on the good Wizards of the Coast copyright, so perhaps chop it down to size a bit (and maybe rename it to Template:Creature to fit the category of that name, as having both a creature and monster template/category would be quite redundant). But that's pretty much unimportant to just getting some content filled into this place, we can always rearrange stuff when there's actually something to rearrange ;)

And thanks for the comment on the main page alternative, welcome again Zerak-Tul 19:35, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

There, tuned it down a bit so now it's just a general gist of the beast...changing it to creature in a sec(forgot when i went initially) --Elessar 20:04, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Looks good :) Zerak-Tul 20:20, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

I noticed that the frontpage's "novels" group is empty. All those novels are grouped as books. So... Should we change all the books group to "novels", or change the frontpage link to go to the "books" group?


 * All the novels should be moved into the novels category (I created the category to kill a red-link on the front page, but I just never got around to re-tag all the novels which are still tagged as the ambigious "books" category), also please sign your talk page comments with four tidles ( ~ ) for ease of use, thanks and welcome Zerak-Tul 19:34, 15 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Try and look at the Novels category now :) Oh, and sorry for spamming recent changes with that many minor edits ;) Zerak-Tul 19:55, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Templates for References
Because many of the references used will be TSR/WotC material, I'm wondering if it might be possible or worthwhile to create some templates so you need only put or  to get something like this:
 * Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting, Ed Greenwood, Sean K Reynolds, Skip Williams, Rob Heinsoo, Wizards of the Coast (2001)
 * Races of Faerun page 45, Sean K Reynolds, Matt Forbeck, James Jacobs, Eric L. Boyd, Wizards of the Coast (2003)

I don't have the necessary knowledge to create a template as flexible as this, but if this is deemed useful, hopefully someone will? Fw190a8 13:03, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Miscellaneous
Where's the content.. pretty disappointing, but i will check back in some time to see if it gets better.

well, before you get all cynical on me, this wiki just started, don't expect much. It would be ice if you'd contribute and not just sit there and...well....Drizzt 01:36, 16 Oct 2005 (UTC)

I just added some info and pictures to the Drow page (I only just discoved this Wiki) and I am planning to add more stuff to this wiki soon. --Norfin 10:49, 22 Nov 2005 (UTC)

Banner
Do we have any dabblers in graphical arts? If so would anyone be up for making some small signature-type banners people could put in their signatures in various forums/blogs/whatever? :) I'd sport one. Could help with getting new editors, and getting the word out that this wikia exists. Zerak-Tul 22:49, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
 * I've had a go at this. Please give me some feedback on these!
 * [[Image:fr-wiki-468_60.jpg]]
 * (with URL)
 * [[Image:fr-wiki-nourl-468_60.jpg]]
 * (without URL)
 * Fw190a8 00:18, 7 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Awesome!! Using the first :D Zerak-Tul 10:48, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

Greetings
Hi, I just joined today. Been interested in the Forgotten Realms setting since I started playing NWN some years ago, and still spending much time diving into the material found in this great setting. Mostly I've focused in the eastern regions, especially Thay, though I've tried to get a general overview over what's found in Faerûn elswhere as well. I'd like some starting guidance on how you guys work, what you can and can not write here due to copyrights etc. Thanks. --Maruz 23:24, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Merry Christmas
Happy holidays to everyone here, from Denmark :) Zerak-Tul 15:48, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

Citation templates
Just to seek a consensus, should we use the format;


 * Ed Greenwood, or
 * Greenwood, Ed

in citation templates and/or reference sections? Zerak-Tul 22:53, 8 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Personally I like: Greenwood, Ed. This is more in keeping with standard citations found in most reference books, and also I believe the style used on Wikipedia. --Perikles 05:41, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Games
I've had a casual browse around the site, but I didn't see any pages which link to games that people are running. Canon material is all well and good, but having a list of online games would also help generate interest in the wiki, and provide an additional resource. I found it useful to look at the web campaigns of other groups when running my own game.

I know of some play-by-mail, play-by-discussion-group, and play-by-wiki games that you could list. I am especially interested in seeing more play-by-wiki games listed, as this is a new area of online roleplaying.

--James 07:34, 19 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I agree that details of games would be beneficial to the wiki and to the games. I think it would be important to ensure that these took a backseat to the main purpose of the wiki, which is to provide an encyclopedic reference to the canon Forgotten Realms world. What do other people think? Fw190a8 03:09, 20 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Another benefit is that you could request a reciprocal link from the wiki/discussion group/website of any game that wishes to promote themselves here. Most GMs would want to link to online resources like this anyway. --James 14:14, 20 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I think adding peoples own content on the wiki is a bad idea, for several reasons. Firstly it distracts from the goal of the wiki, to deal with all things canon to the Forgotten Realms setting. While it may attract more users (the prospect that they could create pages for their own campaigns/games would be alluring, I agree) I think the wiki could get swamped with "advert pages" where people either, write an extremely short article with an external link to draw visitors, or two write a hugely detailed page, which is irellevant to most visitors.
 * Further more, having content like this in the mainspace would just add unneeded confusion, and a clutter of "this content is non cannon templates". But if people are fans of the Realms they're more than welcome, and their own user page is not a bad page to tack up some shameless self-promotion. But again, we perhaps need a clearer definition of what we are, "dictionary" of the Realms, or more of a Realms fan page(wiki).. Zerak-Tul 00:35, 21 January 2007 (UTC)


 * "a list of online games" was my proposal. By "promote" I meant "wishes to list themselves in order to recruit players/readers/etc."  User Fw190a8 makes a valid comment about making sure that we keep in mind that such a list is a subsidiary feature of the wiki, which I will keep in mind.  --James 16:06, 24 January 2007 (UTC)


 * How about just providing lists of relevant content, such as a list of play-by-email games, and a maximum of one article in a namespace like "Campaign:" for each campaign, with some basic details like campaign setting and contact details for players? Having re-read this entire section, I think I need to clarify that I would not support the idea of holding play-by-wiki games on here. That would definitely detract from the canonical nature of the wiki. Fw190a8 02:56, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Given that this site is primarily dedicated to canon information and discussion of such, the last thing I want to see is someone's homebaked campaign information cluttering up canon pages and diluting the use of this site. That said, I see no reason why there could not be a page which simply lists PBEM game sites and allows for a short description. In this way you can have links in a certain place for those who want to find them. If you want to allow an article for each link to furnish further information, that could be good too. Personally, as someone who already runs a FR PBEM from a wiki, I would not want to see any of my campaign specific information 'leaking' over to this site, but it would be a convenient link for my players to reference some things and vice versa, a link here could attract new players. It basicly seems like a win-win situation. --Perikles 17:22, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Please see Talk:Online Games Zerak talk 15:06, 24 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I will create an entry for Perikles's PBEM as a format proposal and the basis of discussion. There are a few fields I feel the entry should contain, in order to make it a useful resource, such as the number of players, how long the campaign has run, whether or not it is recruiting, etc.  I don't think a page with a series of standardised data boxes will confuse anyone, and on the basis of my experiences trawling through poorly labelled links in the past, will save us all a lot of time. If this format is acceptable, it could be turned into a template.


 * Online Games is my proposal for a listing style. I haven't spent much time on the aesthetics, and with a bit of font-size adjustment, the box for each entry can be shrunk quite a lot.  However, as a rough and ready prototype, what do you think?


 * I am not proposing that we permit GMs to post a page about their campaign, as it seems redundant. The link should take them to the site of the game, which should have all of the relevent information already.  The link box should contain enough information for a gamer to get a rough impression of the game without wasting time rummaging through links.  We can set rough guidelines for content if desired which can be tightened if necessary.  Thanks, --James 16:41, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Copyrighted Material
I am no expert on copyright, but I was wondering whether it would be possible to obtain permission from WotC to publish material from the old and out-of-date publications that they sometimes offer as free downloads on their website.

The same goes for graphics. Book cover images, etc. are probably in the best interest of WotC to let you use for book articles. There could be a range of graphics that they would be willing to let you use if it felt it promoted their publications.

Has anyone contacted WotC about this?

--James 07:34, 19 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Book covers, computer game box shots, etc, fall under 'fair use' if they are low-resolution and are used for illustrative purposes. In terms of using material from old and out-of-date publications, what did you have in mind? Nobody (as far as I know) has contacted WotC about obtaining graphics for promotion, but I'm pretty sure nobody would have any objections if you approached them for permission to use graphics on this wiki. Fw190a8 02:57, 20 January 2007 (UTC)


 * [Wizards.com 1st and 2nd Edition Downloads]
 * The information in these old supplements would give a very healthy boost to the amount of content on this wiki. As this content is so old, and freely downloadable from the WotC website, there is a chance that they would not object to some or all of it being used on the wiki.  There are also other download sections with content we might gain permission to use. --James 14:10, 20 January 2007 (UTC)


 * My personal opinion on this is that the wiki should not use the source material as-is, regardless of whether or not this is permissible. Rather, it should act as an index for that material, enabling users to quickly find the information they're looking for. The same goes for any other source material.
 * As an example, suppose a DM is looking to set a campaign in the Moonsea area. She already has a copy of Mysteries of the Moonsea but wants to know what other guides are available. She can use the Moonsea article to get an outline, then decide upon a more specific area. By looking at the references for the article, she is able to get a list of the best source material that she will need to get hold of, in order to flesh out her campaign with official Realmslore.
 * With reference to the games section above, the DM might also be able to use this wiki to find other DMs who have set their campaigns in the same area, and pick up tips or ideas from their games, perhaps even making contact with them for inspiration. Fw190a8 20:30, 20 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Generally I think Wizards of the Coast are not going to have an issue with the content of the wiki - as long as we make sure we do not get too detailed with specific articles - mainly sourcebooks, if we list too much information, people stop buying the books and go here, if we merely include general snippets of content, with an ISBN number for the book, for those who would consider buying it, it would be free advertising for them, which I'm sure they don't mind :)
 * Also, as Fw suggested, if we include proper references in articles, people will be interested in purchasing novels/sourcebooks to get more details on a given subject (e.g. the Moonsea), and by having a well referenced article, it would be easy for visitors to determine which items they should buy.
 * Most of the books have art galleries on Wizards web site, promoting the book in question, and us using these images here (scaled down to a lower resolution if need be) I think falls under fair use, and again should help Wizards promote their products. IANAL Zerak-Tul 00:45, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Spotlight
Woot, check out the Spotlight box in the top right, it's us baby! Look here or maybe go say thank you :) Zerak-Tul 23:21, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Spotlight has faded :( Zerak talk 22:31, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Online campaigns
In light of the recent request for front page coverage on the Talk:Online campaigns page, I have added a link to the online campaigns page on the front page, with the intention of creating an online campaigns portal when there are more online games listed (at the time I am writing this, there is only one). Fw190a8 21:04, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Main Page Empty Space
We have two, jarringly-large, empty white spaces in two of our main page boxes, feel free to suggest stuff we can fill in there! Thanks :o) Zerak talk 21:38, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Statistics
If generally-useless statistics are your thing :) Zerak talk 22:32, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Front Page Addition
Can we add a new bullet point under "People and races of the Realms" that links to the creatures category? Johnnyriot999 17:25, 9 March 2007 (UTC)