Dejavu... ;) Though I'm just grateful that somebody's dedicating some time & effort to the wiki really--Lord knows the staff have long since wiped their hands of it--so whatever you can do to improve things is great!

I'm actually curious, as a relative newcomer to the community... has the wiki idea always been a part of Giant Bomb's featureset or is that a relatively new thing? I've seen it ever since I started visiting the site (more or less a year before I joined). It'd be neat to learn some of the history behind it.

@arbayer2: It's been a staple since almost the beginning dude.

Thanks for the update dude! You and the rest of the team rock!

@arbayer2: I think in the very first How to Build a Bomb video, Jeff talks about the wiki as what Giant Bomb would be all about. Of course, things have since evolved a little.

I forget if the genesis was "IMDB for video games!"

Hold up... name changes are a thing now? Is this feature gonna be implemented at any point on Gamespot because i have an 11 year old account on there with a really shitty username that I would love to change.

Thanks for the update!

@rotnac: You've been able to change your Giant Bomb username at least for years now.

@yummylee: huh... good to know lol. Unfortunately, I have no desire to change my username here.

You are doing the wiki and search at the same time? Feels like trying to hit a target moving at supersonic speed. Best of luck.

@wcarle You guys are awesome. Good luck! Any details on what you're doing for the backend? I think it'd be pretty neat to read about.

@baillie, @csl316, thanks for the info! I didn't know that it was planned from inception at all. That said, it's a really neat thing. You can pour your heart (and research) into trying to explain what this one game you played 15 years ago was like for the benefit of others and I'm pretty grateful for that as a feature.

@theampersand: Hopefully we'll be able to have more details on the backend soon, right now we're still planning and firming up the architecture. We want to have solid plans in place before talking too much about it. One thing I will mention though is that we're leaning heavily towards using REST web services and using them ourselves to build the interface, this should serve to really strengthening our API

Keep up the good work guys. I'm looking forward to the new updates

Thank you guys so much for all you do.

@wcarle

Hi Will, I hope work on the wiki is going well.

I had written you a long reply several months ago about some suggestions I had for the wiki, but then the site burped and ate it (that rarely ever seems to happen anymore btw. Thank you very much to whoever of you engineers that stabilized that!)

Anyway, I was feeling a bit energetic today so I figured I'd try to re-create it in case any of it would be useful to you guys. I don't know how feasible some of this stuff is engineering wise, but I figure you'll be able to sort that out.

1. The wiki could really use a content and style guide. Even incomplete or as a work in progress would tremendously helpful. It's a wiki so I think people would be understanding of a guideline that actively changes. I feel like I see great inconsistencies across the wiki on really basic things the ordering of sections, where images are placed etc. I don't feel like users know what sort of content should go on each page and where and to what level of detail etc, so you have a lot of good faith effort go to waste due to innocent mistakes. Obviously there should be considerable latitude since it's a wiki, but I do think there should be something that delineates something like "every game pages should have these sections in this order" etc at least as a guideline. There should be a central guide that shows users what is expected on a GB wiki page.
2. I really think the wiki could use a replacement for the old bounty system (if you are unfamiliar with the bounty from the Whiskey era, basically a mod could flag a page as needing work and then award extra wiki points to an editor who improved it to the mod's satisfaction) but I see no reason to just stop there at recreating that.
   1. I think users should be allowed to tag a page as being incomplete or broken in some regard to alert other users who might be more knowledgeable on that particular subject that work needs to be done.
   2. Ultimately there should be ways to identify pages that could use work and drive activity towards them
3. The main thing I think the wiki could use is a better hub page to better direct editing traffic and onboard new users. It hasn't happened as much lately but over the years I feel like that users here answer a lot of really basic questions that should be easily accessible to brand new users. If they are asking those kinds of things, it means they aren't finding the answers on their one which is a deterrent to getting started, Turnover in wikis is inevitable so it's critical that you have a system that is welcoming as possible to new people to keep it vibrant. Ideally i think a Hub should have some form of these elements
   1. A tutorial that shows people how the editing works mechanically
   2. A centralized to see bounties and Tags as I mentioned in 2-1
   3. Access to FAQs, style guide as mentioned in 1-1, best practice example pages and perhaps a link to the central wiki editing forum
   4. maybe some cosmetic stuff pitching the wiki to visitors highlighting a random article, explaining the mission ststament etc.
4. It'd be nice if the wiki could leverage the data on other CBSi sites more effectively especially for the more straight forward objective stuff like publisher, developer and release information. In particular everytime I look at gamefaqs I ask myself "why do I have to recreate the same release data CBSi already knows?". There's nothing wrong with being allowed to additional new releases where needed, but it seems silly to do data entry on data that is already present on one of your sites. It'd be nice if when a game gets created, it could auto-populate that info from gamsfaqs if that game is present on their side. For more subjective stuff like genre and theme I wouldn't recommend it.
5. Lastly some area where you guys can post changelogs or whatever is appropriate. Regular proof of life in a central place if you will. Most of us who have been around a while know you guys work on it, but we don't always see it as a lot of the work is understandably subtle. After years of basically waiting I think it would help restore confidence to have scheduled regular communication with editors, whether that's monthly , quarterly what have you. Doesn't has to be excessive, as it needs to be manageable for you guys, just something that is a reliable schedule that people can look to for reassurance. I'm sure there's a ton involved in making things happen, but it feels like to a user GB's wiki has been standing still since 2012 while your competitors continually iterate and evolve. If you want to win people back and win over new users that's a perception you guys need to counter I think.

I had a few others I think, but I can't remember what they were. Anyway I imagine you guys probably thought of most these issues, but I figured I'd mention them in case any of it helps.