Presentation on ifdb

I just went to ifdb to see what A Killer Headache looks like there. There are a couple things I’d like to change, but I’m not sure what to do, since I’ve never submitted something to the IF archive myself. Specifically, I’d like to add a blurb, and if possible, change the online interpreter to one that is capable of showing the status line.

Can that be done? Should I wait until the comp is over?

I don’t see why it can’t be done, however I don’t see a way on the edit page to change the online interpreter. Maybe the best you could do is point at a website that has the interpreter you prefer?

(the IFDB is independent of the Archive btw)

I’ll always accept help to make Parchment better too! I’m not sure why the status lines don’t work - I think jQuery and Prototype don’t play well together.

The version of Parchment that is running the game for the comp does display the status line.

That’s interesting. The comp site should use the same version of Parchment (the year-old one that’s compatible with the recorder pluging) that you used during betatesting.

If it’s Glulx then it’s not using Parchment. I’ve never had the status line working for Quixe+Parchment.

So how is it working on the comp site?

Quixe not embedded in Parchment.

So how come that isn’t used on ifdb?

There’s no other good Quixe host. (Zarf has said he doesn’t want us to depend on the one on eblong.com.)

Only tangentially related, but…

Is there a good reason for keeping the IFDB and the IFwiki distinct and separate from each other? They’re both pretty much Wikis – do they offer categories of content that are better off mutually exclusive? It seems like they would be improved in some consolidated form, but that the longer they continue to grow parallel to each other, the more difficult amalgamating them will become.

I think it makes sense to keep them separate. The ifwiki has a broader scope. Anything can go in there. It has an objective slant. The IFDB is a playing, ratings, reviewing and recommendation site. The narrower scope helps people find what they’re looking for, and people expect to see opinions for and against. The feel of the two are different. ‘Wikis of record’ like ifwiki do well with the visual look it has, but the IFDB IMO requires a more player friendly look.

I think it would be nice if there was a unified list of reviews though. IFDB isn’t supposed to have a list of every (external) review ever, but the list of “Editorial Reviews” seems mighty subjective.

I like having the option to link in editorial reviews to IFDB (because I think it’s less likely that people who are unfamiliar with the community will find them on ifwiki) but if there were a way to make sure all that information wound up in both places, that would be great.

So if the IFDB is for reviews, then what’s ifreviews.org for?

For that matter, what’s intfiction.org for beyond hosting this forum?

ifarchive.org and ifcomp.org are relatively self-explanatory, but the website fragmentation among this community, each site representing itself as the face of IF without even a webring to represent the others (hey, if we’re retro, let’s get serious about it), is amazing. If there was one place where you could get it all, I daresay it would be friendlier to curious newbies.

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ifreviews.org is for spamming IF Planet. More seriously, It’s RootShell’s website, but it’s barely used. Check the dates of the most recent reviews.

intfiction.org was originally going to be for more, but now it’s only the forum. I’d like to add links to some other IF sites on the front page.

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There was once a single IF place where you could get it all. It was an FTP site, though.

Then people invented more things to do.

Since then, occasionally a site would come along and try to be the one place where you could get it all. Problem is, those sites tend to have a shorter lifespan than the community as a whole.

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I know that you’re joking, but coming as it does out of the blue, that sounds a bit harsh…

I believe IFReviews.org originally meant to be something like IFDB, but more focused on reviews. And then IFDB came along, and, well…

However: since IFDB isn’t the place for ALL external reviews… maybe IFReviews.org COULD be that place? One place to find all reviews, that are scattered among blogs and SPAG entries?

I mean, if all that it takes is a dedicated maintainer… Rootshell has been maintaining IFReviews.org for this long without much feedback, how dedicated is that?

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ifreviews.org came before IFDB, but just didn’t take off. It’s a good site, just never gained critical mass.

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