The DOOM history tree of hell is constant in motion and activity. New ports come and go along with new wads and the discovery of new hacks. But every new port and every new release of an existing port or feature has a history of its own. People who worked on them towards the new build. At the same time we have developers establish new (Source) ports, either for the PC platform or for a whole new platform.
The DOOM Wiki and ZDoom wiki are lacking in these histories and meta-histories. This is where this little project comes in. After having researched and documented the ZDuke port and the GrbZDoom port together with members of the community, along with smaller things, i figured i should make this my Magnum Opus project for the community. An on-going effort to document that which is now sorely missing. And a little ''giving back'' to a community that has given a lot in its years of existence.
Welcome to:
It is a documenting and archiving supplement project for the Doom and ZDoom wiki communities. Its purpose is to document all the missing source port links currently existing on the DOOM Wiki and other related Doom obscurities to establish a more complete timeline of DOOM. These may include the documenting of experimental source ports, testbeds and so on. These may or may not have been surpassed by newer ports, but they are part of a port's history and are therefore important or interesting to document. Delivering supplemental historical data for existing ports is also part of the portfolio, aswell as highlighting users that as of now go unrecognized, but deserve to be observed for their contributions even when they are not as visible as othersare.
Other members of the ongoing community can review my changes at the wiki's for the moment (Because i have too few edits.. hah!) but eventually i hope i can speed up this process.
In short, The goals of the project are:
- Delivering historical data for all the ''red links'' regarding source ports on the Doom Wiki, aswell as creating completely new entries
Supplying supplemental data for existing ports and related entries, both on Doom Wiki and ZDoom Wiki
Highlighting essential authors of the community that currently have no recognition at present, yet their contributions have proven to be useful for the community
Note: This is a project of the long haul. I do not have the naivety to think this is a project done in a week or a month - This will be an ongoing effort. Nor can you consider something like this truly ''finished''. I am also well aware that the DOOM Community wants results first and maintains a ''do-it-yourself'' viewpoint regarding projects. After years of lurking and watching by this brilliant little community, now is the time to come out of the woodwork, undertaking something that is understandably less appealing, but will provide a lasting source of information for all DOOM citizens to come. The earlier ZDuke, WinMBF and GrbZDoom suggestions were a test to see if stuff like this was to be accepted and appreciated, and so they were.
The collective DOOM history is long and varied. So let's document it!
Credits to gifimage for the introduction png at the start.