Encyclopedia Galactica - Technical Details

Hiho people,

A few thoughts on the "Encyclopedia" idea:

1. STAFF

1.1 The "Editor"

There should be nominated (or volunteered) one person who shall oversee
the
project - a Project Manager, if you will. It will be this person's
responsibility to ensure things are running smoothly. This person will
also
be the contact point for all submissions. Essentially, "the Editor".

1.2 Assistant Editors

These are a group of people - 5 or 6 - who GET things done. Together
with
the Editor, they also make up the decision making team. The numbers may
swell, or shrink, but these people perform an important job - deciding,
delegating, and doing the dirty work if necessary (coding, writing,
reading,
illustrating). These are the people who need to Know What They Are Doing
-
both in terms of GZG literature, the Encyclopedia iteself, and in their
respective skills (artwork, design, coding etc).

1.3 Staff

The people who do the work - essentially, anyone who wants it. Of
course,
the rules would be that if you're given a job (or take a job) and you
don't
follow through, don't expect to be asked again.

I know this is not necessarily democratic, but speaking from experience
this
sort of organisation will actually see the project come to life - a full
democracy probably wont.

2. GOAL

Define a goal. Define lots of goals. Define lots of little goals that
build
up to a big one. Define a schedule. Stick to the schedule. GET SOMETHING
UP
AND FOR PEOPLE TO LOOK AT is probably the first goal that should be
defined.

3. COVERAGE

As someone else said, nothing that's printed in GZG books should be
reproduced. Stuff may be quoted - with full credit - and stuff may be
paraphrased, to a certain extent, but the point of the exercise is that
most
of the stuff should be original.

4. HOSTING

With the amount of information that could be stored in this thing, the
space
required could get very large. Now unless someone has their own server,
this
could lead to problems. A free space could be used, but then we have
ads...

My suggestion: host it all over the place. Different sites host
different
aspects. Timeline stuff may be hosted at one place; equipment at
another. As
long as the look is consistent throughout, who cares if it's at one
place or
not?

My biggest suggestions at this stage are to sort out exactly WHAT will
be
covered by this project, the GOAL of the project and WHO will be in what
positions - probably in that order.

My 2 cents. :)

Jeremy Sadler
jsadler@earthling.net
Unofficial Stargrunt II Web Site
http://stargrunt.virtualave.net