FreeGameDev

You should try to merge both. Both are more or less targeting the same user group and both are more or less near-to-death. Combining them would help the whole community. I know FDGW is more but not only for the developers and LGW is more but not only for the gamers. But combining both would brinf developers and players closer together. IMHO.

I don't think developers want to wade through game lists and I don't think players want to wade through development material.

I can't see any point in merging them. To bring developers and players closer together you need to create a nice area for players to hear about and test and give feedback on the latest releases. That's what the blog and planet and showcase forum are for. I can't think of any reason why merging a development resource and a game encyclopedia would be of further benefit.

I can see the point of bringing them together, but I doubt the efficiency (and thus usefulness) of a wiki for listing FOSS games. I would prefer to put effort into developing an games list that automatically tracks development progress by analyzing repositories.

@charlie: A wiki isn't like a book that you have to read from page 1 to last page. A wiki user that wants to see a game list or an article about a game just clicks on it or enters it in the search bar. A user who seeks informations about development just clicks on the article labeled "development". The pages of no interest for a user are not found/clicked by this user.

Additionially there can be a site on the wiki for both groups.

You also have to see this from the view of a developer: a developer is only a developer to his game project. To all other games he is a regular "player".

In a combined wiki, there could be cross references between player and developer releted content.

And a reason for comfort: you wouldn't need two separate user accounts.

What player and developer related content? Give examples.

Other than editor convenience (and registering a new account takes 20s so it's not that big of a deal) you are not making any compelling arguments in favour of it.

Sure, it is possible to have all content in one wiki. Sure, we could be wikipedia for open source games. Hell, why not throw in all open source apps for the fun of it. Just because it's possible, does not mean it's desirable. It means more attention needs to be paid to getting the details right, there has to be more organization amongst editors and you then need maintainers to watch out for inappropriate modifications or additions.

charlie {l Wrote}:It means more attention needs to be paid to getting the details right, there has to be more organization amongst editors and you then need maintainers to watch out for inappropriate modifications or additions.

Sounds like activity. Is that such a bad thing?

Are you volunteering Arthur?

Um, I guess I must say no. Have enough to do in the foreseeable future. But, if the possible use case were widened, then I'd say chances would be better to get volunteers.

Funny.. I thought it'd be better to clearly separate them, remove the gamelist in FGDW and the pages about engines and libraries from LGW. You can always refer to the other wiki, i.e. a game on LGDW could refer to LÖVE.

This thread made me looking at both wikis a bit more, and I also think they are too different to merge them. FGDWiki appears more as a tool/tutorial list to me, while LGWiki seems more to be a conventional wiki (like the wikipedia), just focused on a certain topic.

Some random thoughts to both:

About the freegamedev-wiki:
The link lists are useful, but I would not provide too much information about the site itself (as this is in danger to be outdated and hard to keep track of, due to number of links on the wiki). Instead, make a snapshot of the frontpage and use this as link. If possible, auto-update the image regularly. People like to click image-links more (I guess, at least that counts for me), and a snapshot provides some information itself already. If there is something good to know about the site (what isnt clear from the categoriy's headline it is sorted in already) then add a short comment to it and that should be enough.

About the LibreGameWiki:
Hard to say something about it. I think, people expect wikis to be outdated and/or full of gaps. That is my experience from looking at wikis, at least.
There is a news section to the right, last news from Nov 2009. That leaves no good impression. I am used to check out "recent changes", and this shows me the wiki is very active, but not everyone does so. If people have this news section in their rss feeds, you maybe dont wanna spam minor updates there. But for the appearance of the frontpage it would be great to spot a date that is not older than one or two weeks. Maybe make a section with "last updated articles", or include this into the news section, but flag it as "minor" so you dont spam rss feeds (or make a separate feed for it).

This is a good thread for a newcomer to read (like me) but I also want to recommend that development teams to assign someone, even newcomers, to help keep all the sites out there updated (called Liaisons). It is helpful to keep sites updated and gives newcomers who are high on energy and are seeing things with fresh eyes a way to get involved, and if errors are made, you can correct their conceptual errors before they get into the code too far.

Also, updated info will attract the next batch of volunteers, some of which may someday be your team leader!

Anyone with info can update a wiki, but with almost all projects, only a few people know enough to update their page. If I knew how to code in one language, or maybe none at all, would I easily find your project and be able to be fit in? Would I have to devote dozens of hours, or even hundreds of hours to find out that I want to make a serious attempt at joining your team? Or that I need to keep looking? Sure would be nice to be able to surf projects from a 'volunteer looking for a team' POV. Or even something that can be used out of the box to get started...

I AM new, so maybe it is here somewhere... Still overwhelmed at the choices and options. Maybe there is a "Project summary for wannabe's" section I just have not found yet.