Online Games SIG/2007WPSB/index/meetingnotes/April 5th 2007

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[edit] Notes from Conference Call 4/05/2007 11 a.m. Pacific / 2 p.m. Eastern

Call organized via http://www.freeconference.com

[edit] Attendance

[edit] Present

[edit] Team Members Not Present on Call

ACTION ITEM (ALL): Please ensure you have created a brief intro /profile page for yourself. This is a page within the Wiki.

Example:

http://www.igda.org/wiki/index.php?title=User:HursthouseJames

[edit] Overview of the Project

JH explained the proposed structure / plan for the project:

We aim to create an 'Industry Bible' : See http://www.igda.org/wiki/index.php/Online_Games_SIG/2007WPSB/index#Mission_Statement for more details. Volunteers should feel free to comment / amend the Mission Statement.
The proposed structure is five sections as follows:

  • The Past
  • The Present
  • The Future
  • How To Guides
  • Industry Directory

A limited amount of work had taken place in 2006 to define subsections / content within each of these sections.

[edit] The Past

http://www.igda.org/wiki/index.php/Online_Games_SIG/2007WPSB/The_Past (I see Gordon has been busy already - thanks!)

[edit] The Present

http://www.igda.org/wiki/index.php/Online_Games_SIG/2007WPSB/The_Present
http://www.igda.org/wiki/index.php/Online_Games_SIG/2007WPSB/The_Present/PWOGS

[edit] The Future

http://www.igda.org/wiki/index.php/Online_Games_SIG/2007WPSB/The_Future
Please note the sharp focus on 2010.

[edit] How To Guides

http://www.igda.org/wiki/index.php/Online_Games_SIG/2007WPSB/How_To_Guides

[edit] Industry Directory

Currently no content - plan is to create a quite elaborate directory of industry players.

Within The Past / The Present / The Future / How To Guides sections, we anticipate including three levels of content: Core Texts / Further Reading / Springboard.

  • Core Texts : Introductory / overview content suitable for a quick broad grasp of the topic in question.
  • Further Reading : Extended / expanded content delving deeper into a particular topic, assuming a level of understanding of the core issues by the reader.
  • Springboard : Links to other articles / resources around the web related to the topic in question.

We will be able to take 'snapshots' of content at particular points in time to create smaller, printed documents that can act as standalone publications, but also help drive interest and contributions to the main project. These smaller 'snapshots' could be defined by content (i.e. articles based around the same topic), or could be defined by taking only 'Core Articles' from a cross-section of the project.

The group generally approved of the scope and skeleton of the plan and the decision was taken to move forward with the current outline.

[edit] Project Roles

It was agreed that we should aim to assign two volunteers to act as Section Coordinators of each of the five main sections. James Hursthouse and Larry Mellon will act as Overall Project Coordinators / Editors-in-Chief for the whole project. Section Coordinators will be responsible for defining the content and structure of their respective sections and recruiting volunteers where necessary. Teams will identify, contact and work with appropriate contributors.

We allocated volunteers as listed on the Project Contributors page.

ACTION : VOLUNTEERS PLEASE ADD YOUR NAMES TO THE SECTIONS WITH WHICH YOU WOULD MOST LIKE TO BE INVOLVED - WE NEED SECTION COORDINATOR VOLUNTEERS FOR THE PAST (x1), THE PRESENT (x1), THE FUTURE (x2), HOW TO GUIDES (x2) and INDUSTRY DIRECTORY (x1). IF YOU ARE VOLUNTEERING AS A CONTRIBUTOR, PLEASE ADD YOUR NAME IN THE CONTRIBUTORS SECTIONS ABOVE.

It was agreed that future meetings only need to involve the Section Coordinators and Overall Project Coordinators. Section Teams will be relatively autonomous in the development of their respective sections, but JH and LM will be responsible for knitting the document together as a coherent work where appropriate. Having said that, I will continue to inform the whole team of upcoming meetings, and your participation is welcome, but not obligatory.

[edit] Workflow / Communications

The issue of whether to open the project up to the public and totally embrace the full power of the Wiki was discussed. The conclusion was that we will use the Wiki to develop the project, but that an element of quality control is still desirable. We propose to develop the project inside a series of pages with the 'SB' (sandbox) suffix - /2007WPSB/. As content is approved for inclusion in the 'public' project, we will transfer it to a new section called 2007WP. We will consider how comfortable we are with simply opening the project up as we progress. The feeling seems to be that Core Texts should remain somewhat sacrosant, but that other areas are open for expansion / evolution through the Wiki process.

In terms of editorial process / approval, Section Coordinators are relatively autonomous in their decisions. We will put together a Style Guide early on in the project to try and ensure consistency of terminology and usage.

For now, I have totally ripped off the Casual Games Groups Style Guides and adapted slightly.

Style Guidelines

Because style can be somewhat subjective, please send comments and suggestions to Larry Mellon / James Hursthouse rather than directly editing this page. Please don't edit the Style Guide to suit your own definitions of Style, but rather adhere to the Style Guides until any officially sanctioned change is made.

[edit] Identify Technical / Wiki Expertise within the group

Peter Corless previously volunteered to help with the technical aspects of the Wiki / project. We need to identify additional resources for Wiki support. We need to ensure that our project is developed according to best practices within the Wiki community, in addition to implementing ease of navigation and a sensible navigation system.

Also, we may need to identify and implement 'plug-ins' in various sections. Some immediate requirements come to mind:

  • Plug in for Industry Directory.
  • Plug in for Directory of Games to help with Gordon's database of games.
  • Any project management / collaboration plug-ins

[edit] Achievement Milestones

Austin Game Conference

We intend to hold a session at Austin Games Conference in September 2007 as an official 'launch' of the project. Ideally, this will the point at which we feel that the outline / content of the project is in a sufficiently good state to 'take off the training wheels' and let the project go free into the community to evolve and grow naturally. So a combination 'Here's what we did so far' and 'Here's how we envisage it growing' type session. We might consider a 'Snapshot' printed publication to help grow awareness of the project.

[edit] Next Call

I intend to use Thursday 11am / 2pm timeslots for regular Coordinator meetings every two weeks. BUT - Thursday 19th is the Guildhall Event, so I propose Wednesday 18th @ 1pm PST / 3pm ET. I will send out communication to confirm.

[edit] Ongoing Action Item Summary

See Project Action Points

[edit] Project Scratch Pad

Please use the following page as a Whiteboard / Brain Dump Receptacle Project Brain Dump

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