Short on the Wiki

". . . as you blog about it from time to time but work on it almost constantly, the oldest ones often are outdated (Meaning you have moved to better, more advanced techniques), and the middle ones are not always as joined as they could be."  - Scarbrow, the last post [emphasis added].

Ain't that the truth.

Unlike a book, a blog isn't static; it reaches back through time and it contains all the errors in thinking, all the attempts that failed, all the poorly thought out ideas once possessed and described, all the positions taken and all the crud.  Worse, for me at least, it contains a writing style that has been abandoned.  I am a better writer than I was in 2009.  I am definitely a better blogger.  I have a better sense of where to place my emphasis.

When I look back on those past essays, like the one in 2010, I want to rewrite it end to end.  Very often, with my more obscure posts of that period, I want to delete them altogether.

I don't because these posts are history.  My history.  My mistakes, my screw-ups, my misunderstandings, my flame wars, my notes on how I have changed or why I should continue to change.  To encourage and inspire myself, I need only go back and read, shudder, recover and read some more.

But where it comes to ongoing changes in my world - the middle part, as Scarbrow points out - yes, those things seem endlessly lost.  I'm responsible for putting up some trade system videos.  I have versions of maps produced at different times in different stages of creation with slightly different color schemes and all that is cluttered and scattered throughout this blog.  I have bits and pieces of my house rules, without any notes on what I'm still using and what I've dumped.  With more than a million words to annotate, that is probably how the blog will stay.

That is why I recommend not trusting this blog for the final word on anything.  The wiki I've created is anything but comprehensive, but what's there are the rules I play.  Where my game is concerned, those are the rules I follow when and if they apply.  I have a rule that I won't change any rule on the wiki during the game session unless it is in the player's favour - and I won't change it afterwards without discussion and assent from the players.

This blog is for thinking.  The wiki is the law.  If it is short, if there are gaps, then it is because I am not working enough on the wiki.

Seems I never do.  Trust me, however . . . in a few more years that thing is going to be amazing.