FAQOne of the problems here is that the FAQ section has been, well 'unfinished', for several months. It's supposed to contain a lot more detail—detail which was available at some time in the past, but which I just haven't got round to re-implementing.
The original reason the FAQ—and this is some 3 years ago—was I noticed that questions kept coming up on the BGG forums which had already been answered by HiG; but HiG had answered in German, and only a few of the members on HiG were both aware of this and able to read the FAQ that had been posted. So I decided to translate everything on the official homepage, ordered in exactly the same way. That's why there isn't a single category for the basic game: because the homepage divided them into sub-groups.
Anyway, I after that the FAQ expanded with each new expansion, and acquired something of a reputation. Not exactly for authority—because as people have pointed it, even correspondence with a direct employee of HiG doesn't necessarily entail being 'definitive' (we've had conflicting responses from different employees, in fact) but for being as comprehensive as possible, and certainly something you could link to if you wanted to back up your arguments (and that linking is one reason why I won't be making a list of questions on a single page). Between my site and
John Sweeney's—which works on a similar principle—you should be able to find out most anything you need to know.
Incidentally, the last time I wrote to HiG they wrote back asking if they could refer to my FAQ as they set about re-building their own site…
The problem with the FAQ is it's been through three versions—on blogger, in iWeb, and now in RapidWeaver—just like all my other sites have in the same period. Transferring everything is a monumental effort, and I haven't yet moved everything I should have. So the FAQ should, for example, contain all the original German texts that I've based the translations on, as well as commentary on status.
CARAs I said in the introduction recently added to the CAR, it came about when then Big Box was released (18 months ago?). We could all see that there had been a number of changes in the rules, and people wanted to know what they were—both for HiG and RGG. And it seemed natural enough that I do the translations, having done the FAQ. As I went through I added notes about comments about changes, implications, and relevant FAQ. Once complete, the document naturally expanded to cover all the expansions, and then to included a bunch of things which like the Consolidated Tile Reference. I still wanted to keep everything 'official'; or at least keep clear what was translation, and what was commentary. You wouldn't believe the number of times, in the early days of the FAQ, that someone would post a comment simply saying, "Wrong!", and I'd have to regurgitate some spiel about it not being wrong, because it was a translation of an official answer to the question… Anyway, the main reason why the CAR doesn't contain much user-created content is because, apart from statistical stuff like the Tile Reference, it was still all translations. The variants that are included are all translations from a document on the official homepage.
ForumsAbout a year ago, Gantry approached me about a collaboration here on CarcassonneCentral. He hadn't been aware of what I'd been up to, but it was clear that, if CC went ahead as he planned, there'd be a certain amount of overlap—so why not bring it all together? We beat out a few details—I couldn't work on something that recommended the RGG rules (acknowledge, but not recommend), and I wanted to keep to FAQ semi-independent. We decided to lock the downloads away in a password protected area to encourage people to join. And most importantly, the forums generated a community, something there's no way I could have achieved with my blog-based site.
FutureI feel that, a year on, what we both brought to the table has helped each other. Now what we're trying to to is simplify and integrate the site somewhat—strive for a clearer, more identifiable design, remove duplications (you'll notice that you can't log in from the front page anymore—that whole are is being vastly overhauled) and focus on the main strengths of the site.
More specifically, I don't envisage a huge change to the FAQ. The section needs to be finally finished, and it needs to be reorganised to make finding things easier; but I don't see the need for a new approach. I do see the need for spelling out more clearly what the approach actually is, and I'll probably have to create an 'Introduction', just like I did for the CAR.
I do think the CAR should be expanded beyond its current scope. I still don't want to change the nature of the rules themselves—they are translations, and should remain that way, supplemented by extensive notes. But I do feel that there should be more user content—and that becomes possible in conjunction with the forums, and the rest of the CC site. Instead of me picking stuff I like, we can much more easily open the doors to community suggestions, and that's great. I'll just have to split the document between 'official' and 'user' content. My rebuilding of the CAR—which is going to take some work—is setting the ground for that development.
And the site itself (that is, all it's component parts) will be having a re-launch soon too—that's in the works.
Well, I hope that clarifies these things a bit.
