Free Wargames Rules - The Future

[freewargamesrules]

When I started this site back in 1997 there were very few wargames sites, Google did not exists and there were no blogs where people could share whatever they wanted instantly. BAck in '97 I made it my mission to catalogue and collate all the available free wargames rules on the Internet.

Back in those days as there was so little new content being added it didn't take much time to add content. In 1997 only 1.7% (70,000,000) of the Worlds population had internet access fast forward to 2014 and it is now 40.7% (2,937,000,000 users).

After 17 years of trying to keep up and having recently retired from a 30 year Government job I have lost the enthusiasm to continue as I have. I have gone from daily updates to weekly updates then to monthly updates and I am struggling to catch up.

Many people have offered to kindly take this site on, but without knowing them or their commitment longterm I cannot guarantee that in another 5, 10 or 20 years all the hard work is lost for ever.

I am aware what a valuable resource it is and am unwilling for it to die a slow and painful death.

I have seen the power of social media and collective collaboration, therefore, I have a radical proposal to ensure the continuation of resource:

I propose that we have a "wikipedia style" resource of Free Wargames Rules where the whole community maintains it, adds new content, amends incorrect data and removes obsolete information. I will continue as overall Administrator.

This way everyone  can contribute and the resource survives. This is a mammoth task to convert this data to a wiki and it will need a great deal of work. I do not want to start this if there is support across the community so please comment below on my blog or contact me via the website at:  http://www.freewargamesrules.co.uk

[von Lucky]

I can see the real benefit of a wiki layout - will allow cross connections to authors, game details (for aerial, skirmish, ancients, etc) and other benefits a "static" site doesn't allow. Will watch with interest.

[Furt]

A noble effort so far I'd say.

I think the wikipedia style is a good idea, however would it not be better to host the relevant files so that they are never lost or become obsolete?

[Conquistador]

A noble effort so far I'd say.

I think the wikipedia style is a good idea, however would it not be better to host the relevant files so that they are never lost or become obsolete?

Thanks for volunteering to do this... or, wait, you didn't volunteer?

Seriously, the time commitment is the very real the killer for many great ideas on the internet.

Good luck with this thread.

I gave up on free rules for various reasons long ago (another thread perhaps so as not to hijack this one) but from a historian view the loss of this resource will be sad.

Gracias,

Glenn

[WitchfinderGeneral]

Like I wrote in my mail to you (Pete): Wiki is the way to go! 


Authors of rules could maintain "their" wiki-articles themself. That way they wouldn't have to care for an own website (though today, with free blog sites and so on, this became so easy). Or maybe there are "fans" of certain rules who would volunteer to keep these rules updated.

Free rules (referenced on this particular site) were my way off from everything "GW". I think it is important to show interested gamers an alternative without making a major investment.


Wikis support upload of files. So it's easy for every contributor to upload the rules (PDFs) directly and linking them in the article (which contains more general information about the cerrtain rule set). Storing the rules independent from external sites is a good idea.

[freewargamesrules]

OK the wiki is up and running at:

http://freewargamesrules.wikia.com/

Please feel free to come along and contribute.

[Mister Rab]

Good idea. But... I'm new to the whole wiki thing (contributing, anyway) so how do I take the word Goblinquest from your list of fantasy games and create a linked page for it? I don't want to horlix the whole thing

[freewargamesrules]

Good idea. But... I'm new to the whole wiki thing (contributing, anyway) so how do I take the word Goblinquest from your list of fantasy games and create a linked page for it? I don't want to horlix the whole thing

Until all the rules have been added I've had to add index pages for each period. These will be removed once that period has been transferred across (Just done that with the Ancients period).

I have created a clickable link to Goblinquest so that you can click on it and then you can create the page with the link and everything you want to put on it.

[eilif]

First off, thanks for all your effort in creating "Free Wargames Rules" and for trying to see that it makes the transition to a new site.

The wiki looks nice, but it suffers from what IIRC was lacking in the original site.  That is, a more detailed explanation of the rules at each link.

There were so many, and many of the descriptions were so vague that it was hard to know where to start.  I remember throwing my hands up and heading to a forum instead to ask about rules.

It's up to the author, but perhaps there could be some strong suggestion to authors and posters to note:

-Sub Genre
-intended scales
-Degree of complexity
-Scope of game