I’m making a github organization that uses GitConsensus to manage a collaborative markdown worldbuilding wiki. Basically, you’d vote on pull requests using thumbs up and down emojis.
I don’t want this to be a thing where I point at an empty text document and say “worldbuild.” What’s some work I could do beforehand that could get people interested in contributing?
EDIT:
I don’t use git but that sounds like it could be interesting. I think as far as what you could do beforehand depends on how much influence you want others to have. You could start with a blank page, and then maybe present some multiple choices for what kind of basis for the world you’d want. What genre? Fantasy? Sci-fi? Both? Modern? Post-Apoc? Etc. etc. Is it a single world/planet? Is it an entire universe/cosmology you’re building? Then continue to break that down depending on the choices made. So if it’s just a single planet/world you could then ask what kind of world/planet? A spherical globe? A large space station? A Dyson Sphere? A cube planet? A disc shaped world? A ring shaped world? etc. etc.
If you already have an idea for what genre, world, cosmology, etc you want and don’t want others influencing that aspect as much then I’d suggest getting those base elements down first and then opening it up for others. If not, you could always start with that blank page (I would just suggest multiple choice if you go that route, blank canvases can be intimidating).
I think I want to start with fantasy since its the most popular genre among worldbuilders.
Other than that, I’d want it to be as community driven as possible. My concern is no one wanting to “break the ice” in regards to contributing.
I think that’s a valid concern because nobody is going to want to break the ice. If they did, they’d start their own worldbuilding project most likely. You’re going to have to be the one to head this and break the ice yourself. This community isn’t quite active enough to plop a project like this down and have people clamber for it, not yet.
Edit: I added a question to your pollunit to help get things moving though 😄
Thanks for the feedback, it’s been genuinely helpful. I’ll come up with something to post. I suppose if I make something people don’t like, they can always make a pull request to change it.
Sure thing, happy to help! Worldbuilding is a passion of mine so I’d love to see a project like this get some traction and for the worldbuilding community on Lemmy to thrive 😄