I have worked on several games over the years and work as a professional writer. I don't need to be told the process.
My question was whether or not Solsys was an employee or a volunteer.
And with all due respect, my criticisms are hardly the most scathing of those found on the internet.
You softened your approach and your question whether he was an employee occurred in a follow-up post. I was specifically referring to this:
At the moment there is absolutely zero reason to consult the wiki. It is worthless from a new player's perspective. The several times I did go there looking for information, it is nonexistent. I don't want to be rude, but do the players need to explain to the devs how to play and explain the game?
I don't need to be told how weapons work, they are very self explanatory. What you need to focus on are the game play intricacies which need to be explained to the new players to attempt to encourage people to invest in this game.
Though I believe your intention was trying to be helpful, it did come off aggressive. Even SolSys responds accordingly by needing to clarify he isn't a developer and it wasn't the type of response he was expecting. (It must be said that tone is impossible to tell on a written forum, so there is always a lost in translation moment when relaying intent.) My only point is that he is a community member trying to make the wiki better, and you came down hard on him saying the wiki is worthless. He is trying to improve it. Community wiki's take time to develop, as you surely know. Honestly, your annoyance is justified as not having a manual for the game was a clear oversight by the developers, and the wiki is not a good substitute (at least not yet). Your criticism was absolutely not the most scathing found on the internet, but in this community, we should be trying to support each other. We all want a better game. Let the scathing comments come from outside this community.
Also, I wasn't trying to lecture you on technical writing. So my apologies if it came off that way.
The overriding question based upon your reply is why would someone who knows nothing about a game and openly states he doesn't have time to play it or scan the forums be in charge of writing the wiki? You want to understand why half the forum is up in arms about the quality of the release? This might be an example worth citing.
However, when you state something like this, I do feel the need to defend the writer. As you have worked on games and as a professional writer, it strikes me as odd that you would say something like this, let alone think it. Hence why I mentioned technical writing and only needing the code to write a good manual. Writing a manual and writing a strategy guide are different, of course. I do agree with you in that sense. You need to have played the game to be able to truly write on the best strategies to win. Yet writing about the weapons, taxis, or other mechanics/characters of the game can easily be done with just the code. Just my opinion.