Feedback talk:User/Tennessee Ernie Ford/List of Active Guilds

Why?
Just why should something like this be piled on the Sysops/admins? If a guild chooses to create a guild page, that is fine, if not, that is their choice. I for one as an active sysop here do not want to be held accountable for doing something like this. I don't see any benefit. Also, for ArenaNet to provide personal information (leadership/officer status, character names, etc) of players who do not choose to make that information available on the wiki themselves is just wrong in my opinion. I know if I were one of them I would certainly be upset if ArenaNet did that. -- Wyn  talk  00:35, 5 November 2009 (UTC)
 * i agree. i'm sure all the ppl in xCMx would be embarassed as hell having ppl know they're in that guild -- adrin [[Image:User_Adrin_mysig.jpg|20px]] 00:58, 5 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Piled on the sysops? This is running a 20sec script 1x/month, which requires far less time than even scanning the recent changes for vandalism. Heck, nearly every sysop on this wiki invested individually more time in warning a single contributor about their signature than I am asking the entire group to spend in a year.


 * Personal information? The names of toons and the names of guilds are hardly personal pieces of information; the first is readily available to anyone already (the second is nearly available already). (In particular, you cannot prevent ANet from showing your toon's name, from displaying your in-town gains of skill points, or displaying when you max a title.) As a self-described overly-security conscious person, I have no concerns about this. If this issue is more problematic than I believe, it can be readily addressed in two ways:
 * Do not provide the names of any toons. OR
 * Require an opt-in proviso through the Guild Lord: for 10, a guild officer can choose to make the information available (or not).


 * It's fine if you don't see a benefit; you don't need any other reason to object.  &mdash; Tennessee Ernie Ford ( TEF ) 01:06, 5 November 2009 (UTC)
 * This isn't a 20 second script Joe can put together in an hour. What you're talking about is a programming nightmare. What's wrong with using forums? Guru has a whole category devoted to guild recruitment. ~Shard  [[Image:User Shard Sig Icon.png]] 01:24, 5 November 2009 (UTC)


 * For once, i would like to Anet to copy be inspired by Other games(tm) that have sections for characters and guilds on their same sites. Not for GW (since they probably didn't built the DB for that) but for GW2 at least.--Fighterdoken 01:30, 5 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Why? We have a perfectly good Guild Namespace here, and there are all the Guild categories including a full set of recruiting categories. If people want to use it they are welcome, but should not be forced to be on some random list that ArenaNet generates. Why do you want them to copy other games? I personally hate that entire concept. I guess it's why I don't choose to play any of those other games that do stuff like that. If I want the world to know stuff, I prefer to have the choice, rather than have it just done regardless. Having a character name displayed in the game when you max a title, etc. doesn't tell anyone anything about that character other than that single specific event. It doesn't tell you what guild they are in, it doesn't tell someone if that guild is active, pve, pvp, etc... Besides, the numbers you are talking about are truly meaningless, my guild has 18 officers, and 40 members... with that information, would you consider us active? -- Wyn [[Image:User Wynthyst sig icon2.png|19px ]] talk  01:51, 5 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Knowing you never sleep, I'd say yes. ~Shard  [[Image:User Shard Sig Icon.png]] 01:54, 5 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Why? For once, it's automated (so no need to police/maintain it). Two, you can opt out (so if you are ashamed of your guild, you can keep it secret). Three, is a good source of income if you offer it as a "premium" service (as good as "hairstyle changes" at least).--Fighterdoken 01:56, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

The guild namespace here is, indeed, perfectly fine. However, in my opinion, it's also perfectly useless in the sense that it doesn't serve the average player's needs.
 * It's not used a lot: many people don't know about it and many of those that do visit can't find what they are looking for.
 * A lot of guilds no longer bother to create their own page since they have their own website; why not make it easy to link this wiki to those websites?
 * Since it's missing most guild entries, the space can't easily be used to find a guild.
 * Likewise, since most people don't/won't come here to find a guild, it's not useful in recruiting.

So, I am proposing to make it simpler to include more guilds in the namespace. This won't, by itself, make things easy...but it will help to generate critical mass of traffic in the space. That, in turn, will make it more likely that peeps will come to the namespace, which in turn provides an incentive for those interested to keep their pages current.

Regarding the numbers: sure, none of them are that helpful (except perhaps amount of faction); their primary advantage is that they are trivial to include in a file (that data is already presented in-game). Knowing that a guild has 5 members/5 officers distinguishes it from those that have 100 members/8 officers; it's a proxy for activity, not a true measurement thereof.

Regarding privacy: I've added the requirement that this be an opt-in feature (which, alas, would likely take it from an easy task-level programming effort to something more substantial). I've removed the suggestion that this include names of officers or members (again, even as paranoid as I am about sharing personal information, I wasn't concerned...then again, why invite the issue?).

Anyhow, I don't expect to convince anyone that this would be helpful. I believe there's already a core of peeps already out there that would make greater use of the namespace if it served their needs. This seemed like the least-effort method to bootstrap increased traffic and information. Honestly, it's not worth doing if we're going to spend more time discussing its merits than it would take to program a monthly dump of easily-extracted data. (Not saying I'm giving up on the idea; just saying if it ain't easy, it ain't worth the time.)  &mdash; Tennessee Ernie Ford ( TEF ) 02:58, 5 November 2009 (UTC)


 * On a separate note, what does the amount of faction have to do with the PvP / PvE focus of a guild? What is the use of including it at all?  Koda  [[Image:User_Koda_Kumi_UT.jpeg‎|19px]]  Kumi  11:30, 8 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Guilds with high faction are more likely to have strong PvP membership than those that don't. It doesn't measure interest directly, which would require complicated new tools and/or software.  &mdash; Tennessee Ernie Ford ( TEF ) 19:53, 8 November 2009 (UTC)
 * DTSC says hi. Also, you may not be aware, but the Guild infobox template does have entries for webpage and forums, so yes, the Wiki is already connected to guild webpages in that sense that guilds can make an entry here, include some basic information and link to their webpage.--Lensor ( talk ) 13:41, 10 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Once again, proxy does not mean, the best way to measure something. I don't believe that high Faction, by itself, is an accurate measure of PvP activity; high faction is simply already measured by ANet, which makes it cheap to use as a proxy. (It would be extremely complicated to measure a guild's level of total activity, let alone its proportional interest in one type of play.)


 * This section was entitled, Why as in Why do we need this? Let me turn it around: what is the purpose of the guild namespace as it currently exists? (1) Only a small fraction of guilds start a page. (2) Even fewer guilds maintain their pages. (3) The current rules in the space mean that most guilds interested in a web presence still need to maintain a homepage elsewhere. (4) Many people are completely unaware that the space exists. (5) It would be relatively cheap to setup a mechanism to create basic guild pages, populated by the easiest-to-obtain public data. Consequently, why not make it easy for everyone to bootstrap their initial page? Why is it a bad thing to encourage people to come here by providing more data?  &mdash; Tennessee Ernie Ford ( TEF ) 01:13, 11 November 2009 (UTC)
 * tbh I think it's more trouble than it's worth, as shown on this very page
 * I also am unhappy with the thoughts of not having a say in who puts up information about me, regardless of if that's ArenaNet or some moron who managed to become an Officer in a Guild. User A F K When Needed Signature Icon.jpg A F K  When  Needed 18:53, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Sigh. You may well be right. I'm looking for a way to make the Guild space on this wiki more useful to more players and more guilds. This particular implementation might suck, but my heart is pure. (Well, for the purposes of this discussion.) &mdash; Tennessee Ernie Ford ( TEF ) 19:39, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Might I be so bold as to suggest what you have an issue with is current GWW Policy? User A F K When Needed Signature Icon.jpg A F K  When  Needed 20:15, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
 * This is also true: I don't understand e.g. why GWW rejects recruiting in the Guild space. I don't feel passionate enough about this wiki's Guild-space policy to spend the effort dealing with the resistance to change that always takes place in policy discussions. I thought it would be useful to make it easier for wikicode-n00bs to setup a guild page with data that ANet and the guild leaders already have. Apparently, I am in a tiny minority.


 * /resign &mdash; Tennessee Ernie Ford ( TEF ) 20:30, 23 December 2009 (UTC)