Middle Earth Ranger Forum

That sounds pretty comprehensive.

Is it possible to have a site-map/table of contents somewhere that's easily searchable and browse-able? And maybe even something like an index or glossary, where we can click on key words and it will bring up a list of pages that contain them? That way it could function sort of like a big online text-book (but a lot more fun). It would certainly make the whole thing very easy to navigate.

Any thoughts on the RPG thing?

I installed a set of components to the wiki, Blue Spice, which among other things are supposed to make it easier to edit, however I it seems to also have made it slower than snot. I'm removing it. hope it doesn't affect anyone adversly.

Awesome work Greg! I am impressed with your edit of the Philosophy page. You put it much better than I could.


Just so everyone knows I will be playing with the base theme for a while (i.e. days or weeks), so don't be surprised as the frontpage changes. Also to keep Orcs from invading, I have removed the ability of non-users to edit.

Among the things that I'm doing with the template:

* Responsive Theme - so it looks good on phones & tablets
* Changing the colors to fit with the forum.


Also, when I was skinning the forum, people seemed adverse to any templates that seemed 'slick' or pretty. Is this still true?

I'll put my opinion this way...I'd prefer it to fit in with the forum skin as much as possible.

On the topic of dividing the forum by level of Authenticity...how would you recommend we go about this? Should we make five main headings on the frontpage, and shelve everything under that, or is there a more subtle way we can approach this?

Greg wrote:I'll put my opinion this way...I'd prefer it to fit in with the forum skin as much as possible.

That is currently my goal.

Greg wrote:On the topic of dividing the forum by level of Authenticity...how would you recommend we go about this? Should we make five main headings on the front page, and shelve everything under that, or is there a more subtle way we can approach this?

My preference with Authenticity is not to divide it, so much as to have some community definitions drawn up, and have things labeled as to their level of authenticity. I rather like how Historic Enterprises does it for their catalog. Here's their rating system, which I don't think would work for us, but is informative. I have worked on an authenticity rating system before which tried to derive a single score from multiple ranges of factors.

This becomes more interesting as we have been rather magnanimous regarding incorporating interest in non-Tolkien Rangering and some things are definitely canon in one system, and conjectural in others. (ex. Seaxes are reasonable but conjectural in a Dunedain context, while mandatory in an Arulean one.)

Now we're talking.

Jack...the skin. That'll do, pig. That'll do.

Any references to you as a porker are entirely coincidental.

One thing I would do is add some tables to separate certain parts of each page, such as the contents, body, notes, etc. Not really necessary as it would only really be cosmetic, but it would make it look a little cleaner in my mind.

Alderic wrote:One thing I would do is add some tables to separate certain parts of each page, such as the contents, body, notes, etc. Not really necessary as it would only really be cosmetic, but it would make it look a little cleaner in my mind.

Yes, that is my eventual intent. however I am only working on the wiki as I have time. Which comes after work, kids, wife and house remodel.

If anyone wants to take a crack at it, the theme is a variant of the Strapping theme: https://github.com/OSAS/strapping-mediawiki which can be really customized, for example: http://www.ovirt.org/Home

If you need a wiki login, I have disabled self-subscription because of Orc activity, but I would happily create a user for you.

So I have been messing with the mechanisms of the Wiki template, and changed the base icons. How's it feel?


Change Log:

* removed the Uncial font from most page elements. Does this add, or detract?
* Added columns and to make sections more readble
* changed icons/widget to scalable monochrome icons How are they? (I'll post how to add various sizes later.

The new monochrome "universe" icons look great!

LOVING the font change. I think using that classy font on titles and sub-headings is a great idea...it keeps the feel, while allowing the more standard font help the page read easier. Lowercase T's and C's looked too similar, and the fact that there were no capital letters possible made us look a little dumb...*chuckles* This looks a little more professional.

The new labels/logos are perfect. That's exactly what we needed. I like the columns, too. Don't have to scroll as far to make note of the content on the main page. Clear and Concise.

It's looking better than ever. Like Greg said, it does make it a lot easier to read. I actually had some trouble sticking with it before.

I don't know personally. The Strapping theme lends itself to subjects with a limited number of topics and users that are already very familiar with the subject.

My opinion is that ME Rangering - if you want to appeal to newbies - you've got to be able dump out a smorgasbord of subjects before the user and have everything easy to comprehend.

The links could be included in the text of the introduction: "Sometimes we do this (link) and sometimes we do this (link)."
That would help enable a new user's enthusiasm and understanding. I'd ship for a sidebar that contains those links too. My $0.02.

Is it possible we can have a sidebar?
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Sidebar
IMHO, it would really help with navigation.