The Graffiti Wall:WikiRPG

WikiRPG: a kind of Role-playing game with a WikiMaster who devises an assignment dealing with a Wiki (including our own Avlis Player Wiki) that may be in the real world (such as going to a library, a museum or interviewing someone), or played soley as a cyber game.

Interacting with the Wiki is largely a solitary uncoordinated activity as it stands today. There is a sense of community, but not so much coordinated cooperation between people. WikiRPG is an attempt to coordinate efforts, and to make working on the Wiki more interesting and fun. It can also serve to recognize Wikians of excellence. It's supposed to be educational after all.

The nature of the quest is entirely up to the WikiMaster, who has ultimate judgement over whether the players have accomplished the quest they have been given. It may be played as a team sport, or like Dungeons and Dragons, as an adventure through knowledge space rather than dungeons.

Since this is Wiki, the rules will undoubtedly evolve over time (since anyone can edit them :-) but the quest should be something that promotes the Wiki. It could be to find factual errors, to create new articles, to research new subject areas, or to find new areas that need researching. You could go looking for Wiki vandals. Assignments could be given to get new photographs of interesting things for the Wiki. It's limited only by the imagination of the WikiMasters. It could be timed, or not. There should be no damage to the Wiki as a result of playing the game, in fact, improving the Wiki is a goal.

I trust the wisdom of the Wiki to come up with interesting scenarios, and effective and safe rules. Some mechanism for handing out quests and forming teams has to be created, but we are creative people, we are Wikipedians!

Rules

1. At no time should the activities of WikiRPGers damage the Wiki.
2. The WikiMaster is the sole judge of the success of the players, and sets up the quest.
3. The rules will evolve over time as WikiMasters gain experience in playing. (Sort of like playing kick ball with five year olds.)
4. The quest should be posted on a Wiki page at a prespecified time.
5. Anyone with a suitable quest can be a WikiMaster.
6. All rules of the Wiki should be observed.
7. The winner is posted on the same page that the quest was posted on.
8. It's supposed to be fun.

Example Quests

• A competition between two or more Wikians. The challenge: Find someone who lives in Boston who can go take a picture of the site of the Boston Tea Party for you, and add the picture to the page on that topic. If you live in Boston, you have an advantage. Whoever gets a good picture up first wins the quest.

• Given 2 hours, find as many factual errors in the area of History of the Middle Ages as possible. Document your facts. The winner is the one who fixes the most errors.

• During the next twenty minutes, find as many spelling errors as possible in the Wikipedia site, and fix them. The winner will be determined by examining your change log between 10:15 PM and 10:35 PM on January 4.

• Report to page X at 8:00 PM on January 10, for your quest. (We may have to set this up on a separate Wiki, rather than use the resources of Wikipedia to post quests, or not, someone with more encyclopedic knowledge of the Wiki rules should comment.) There should be a home page (maybe here?) for posting and reading quests.