So, a long time ago I took it upon myself to go out and get us a wiki. I decided if Wookiepedia used Wikia, it must be pretty good, so I decided to try and go with that. I got us a free wiki hosted by Wikia, and started to have my way with it before I gave up trying to have something presentable to show before unveiling it. I posted about it and got some help, and it started to become usable. Fast forward to now, and it's still just that...Usable. But not much else. I ended up neglecting it as well as this whole website for a while, and I've been meaning to try and get back in and really improve the wiki.

And it really does need improving. It's ugly, for one, and not very exciting or overly helpful. It functions fine as a "search for what you're looking for" wiki, but I want it to be more then that.

I've been exploring a couple ideas.

The first, most drastic, and hardest change involves hosting our own wiki on the fsmod.com domain alongside the main site and the forums using the MediaWiki source code. This would require a more or less complete rebuilding of the wiki but it's benefits are an increase in customization and personalization...We can do pretty much whatever we want and don't have to do things the way Wikia spells it out for us. This will eliminate adds, or if we wish, we can use adds that will generate revenue for payment of the site, etc. However, I know very little about operating a wiki that isn't hosted by someone else. I know my way around basic HTML and Javascript, and how to set up a website, but I'm not very familiar with PHP which is what wiki's use. I don't expect this to be a likely idea, but if we had to start over, it's an option.

At the very least, we need to improve the appearance and navigation through a variety of smaller ideas.

I'm going to see if I can make a custom skin theme, or at the very least, improve our color scheme.

Then, there's the navigation. We currently have an ever-growing contents box that, while convenient, needs improving.

We need more uniformity, more pictures, more statistics. Weapons should have an infobox. Maps should have the actual top-down tactical maps available.

A while back we experimented with adding Guides. That needs improving so that they are better organized and get more attention.

And of course, BlackIntel needs an article.

And so I want your input, your feedback. What do YOU guys think? What should it look like?