Wikis / Unreal Wiki / Legacy:Wiki Public Relations

This page is for discussing potential news releases and working jointly on the text for them.

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Press Releases

In general, we should make it a habit to send out press releases regularly when we add some functionality to the Wiki or reach some milestone (like the first thousand pages). Even if it's just small stuff like the enhanced search function (or maybe in future the Offline Wiki), it'll help keeping the Wiki in the press.

• Legacy:Wiki Public Relations/Unreal Wiki Opens – never actually released, no release planned
• Legacy:Wiki Public Relations/Mod Ideas Opens – released August 1, 2002
• Legacy:Wiki Public Relations/Thousand Pages – we sailed past this around August/September 2002, but since the site was a bit of a UT / UT2003 mess. Tarquin dind't think promo was wise
• Legacy:Wiki Public Relations/Wiki Integration – pending
• Legacy:Wiki Public Relations/One Year Old

The following upcoming events might be worth a press release too:

• Announcement of www.unrealwiki.com?
• Announcing Swathes of UT2003 Info – soon after its release

General Tips on Writing Press Releases

See Wiki Public Relations/Forum Post for suggested text from Tarquin.

• Write in third person. Make it as easy as possible for news editors to use your text.
• If you wish to include images in your press release, attach them, don't link to them. Make sure they're suited to be used without modification by news editors.
• Always add a general section that explains what the Unreal Wiki is. We're not yet so well-known that we can assume that knowledge.
• Always add your contact information in case news editors want to know more.
• Order the information you give from most important to least important. News editors who don't want to post your entire text will prune it starting at the bottom.

Addresses

List of news email addresses of various related websites. Feel free to add to it.

There's a list of forums over at External Links.

Discussion

Birelli: I have a question on this - why are we sending stuff to Deus Ex sites? We have essentially no content on the game, unless it is so closely built to UT on the engine that it's just like a big TC or something. It seems pointless and even counter-productive to try to rake in Deus Ex fans, since they'd probably want to start up a Deus Ex section (which we could do), but I think the focus of the Wiki is on U, UT, UT2003, and U2.

Mychaeel: Well, it's the Unreal Engine Documentation Wiki. Next thing I'll look into, coding-wise, will be namespaces, so there wouldn't be a problem with making a "DeusEx" namespace.

Tarquin: I've posted about the wiki on both Rune and DeusEx forums – where I could find them. Not that it's had any effect :(

EntropicLqd: They've probably been scared off by the amount of Unreal/Unreal Tournament information on the Wiki. I think if we want to get those communities using the Wiki we'd need to craft a separate press release simply advertising the existence of the Wiki and asking for mappers and scripters to contribute Deus Ex content.

Mychaeel: ...and we should create a bridge head for them. Right now I wouldn't know as a Deus Ex coder or mapper where to start adding my information.

Tarquin: Indeed. Maybe for starters give Unreal Engine Versions more prominence on the front page.

DJPaul: For starters, it's not as if "we" have a lot of SPECIFIC detail about UT. If we go into specific detail about the unrealscript for each engine, "we'd" need more people to look after it all. And, I know from experiance, the active coding Deus Ex community consists of maybe no more that 7 people, and i'd only brand no more than 3 of them as "experienced" coders.

DJPaul: Mych, how did you get PlanetJB to point to the BU URL at a DNS level (so as to avoid issues with any third-party cookies)? Could you inform someone at BU, or give me an email address?

Mychaeel: Check BeyondUnreal's home page today (2002-11-21):

Friendly Reminder - Unreal Wiki
by QAPete at 5:30 AM EST (UnrealEd)

One of our most popular hosted sites, Unreal Wiki, doesn't really have 'news' to report to the main page, so we wanted to take a moment to point this huge UnrealEd resource out to you. Chock-full of hundreds of pages of UnrealEd information, Unreal Wiki has fast become one of the leading resources for mappers and modders everywhere. The best thing about Unreal Wiki is that you can join up and contribute at any time! The concept behind Unreal Wiki is to allow for open contribution! We already have 126 project contributors signed up as of this writing. We'd also like to invite the folks from Epic Games, Digital Extremes, Legend Entertainment and other Unreal-licensees to contribute to the Wiki.

One thing we'd like to note: if you use a 'harvesting' program to automatically download the entire contents of Wiki, you will be caught and permanently IP banned from the site. There are no warnings or exceptions, and yes, this could possibly result in ruining things for your entire subnet. The intent of Wiki is to provide an editable online resource that resides here on our server, not on everyone's hard drive.

So, whether you want to contribute or simply use the resource for your own mapping/modding purposes, Unreal Wiki is fast becoming the 'place to be'. Stop by sometime and see why we're making a fuss about it!

See also Offline Wiki.

Ch3z: (not sure if that "See also" line goes at bottom of page or not). I wanted to point out a nice way to introduce people to the wiki. Scouring the forums for questions and linking to the wiki page where the issue is addressed is very helpful way to promote the wiki. As did BeaVer in this post at the Atari forum.

Birelli: We're at 2,966 pages at the moment, might be time to prepare a "3,000 pages" news post to send to BU :)

SuperApe: I'm willing to do a banner ad; I'll find some time soon (suggestions welcomed above).

Mychaeel: Unreal Wiki has been referred to in the Official Xbox Magazine.