Collaboration between Runescape Fan Sites. Continued again.

Two more posts about collaboration between Runescape fan sites:

• From Baldwin (Rune Legion)
• From Arieder (RuneAddict)

I'll leave it pretty much as it is with only one additional comment: I see collaboration being valuable not on the code level, but on the services level. I mean, it is OK to share code and I personally did it before with combat calculator and high score lookup, but what I am really talking about is using shared services (aka services and widgets) where fan sites would expose their intellectual property for others to use, but would get credit (via back links or other means) for doing it.

Collaboration between Runescape Fan Sites. Continued.

In my first post about collaboration between Runescape fan sites, I did not mentioned a project Arieder from RuneAddict and I had already agreed upon. It was quite inconsiderate from my side and I apologized to Arieder shortly after. Fortunately, he didn't hold the grudge and finished the project today.

The project was about integrating Runescape Reader's Digest posts into RuneAddict, thus giving RuneAddict's users an easy access to Runescape news and articles I feature in this blog and giving the Runescape Reader's Digest even broader audience. Again one of those win-win situations I was talking about in the first post. You can see how it was done on the RuneAddict's home page.

With that, I want to thank Arieder for coming up with such idea and actually making it happen. I really appreciate it.

Collaboration between Runescape Fan Sites

I've been nurturing this idea of Runescape fan sites being more open to each other. And not just being "non-hostile", but actually helping each other and sharing ideas and services. I might be too idealistic, but I honestly believe, there is a way for fan sites to benefit from such openness.

Take this collaborative RWT ads filter environment I've been pitching for quite a while. RuneTower, TruthScape, RuneWise have been using it successfully for two years. Recently MechScape World joined in and also is benefiting from it. By doing it in a collaborative matter, amount of work for each fan site is minimal and benefit is obvious - no RWT ads on all these sites.

That's just one example, but for a long time I wasn't thinking beyound that (well, except for being fan site neutral in this blog). Interestingly, joining the Twitter Runescape community gave me another spur. There fan site owners are actually TALKING to each other! Anyway, I realized that there is nothing wrong with RuneWise's content being served to other fan sites via services. Indeed, I would love to see more players taking advantage of all those Runescape tips and suggestions accumulated at RuneWise throughout the last 3 years. So I made services out of level based tips and unusual tips. Joost indicated his interest in the project, so hopefully the idea can be validated at RuneTower. Rune Legion is also interested. The only thing I am asking in return for RuneWise's content being served from other sites is some kind of "powered by RuneWise" message/link. Win-win situation? Yes, I think so.

Now, what about Runescape Items or Monsters databases being exposed as services? Of course, I don't have them at RuneWise, but if some fan site offers such services, I'll be more than happy to use them while giving credits to the service provider. And I am sure there are other areas for such kind of integration.

Finally, here is a link to Baldwin's (from Rune Legion) post on the same topic with Joost's (from RuneTower) comments. Take a look.

What do you think about all this?