Guild Wars Wiki talk:Fansites

Fansite inclusion in wiki
Much as we're revisiting discussions on listing guilds, I think we should revisit the discussion on listing fansites. I see three four options. Personally, I could support either option two or three, which seem to provide the best benefit to the community. Option one seems to deny the existance of external fansites, while option four would open the door to anyone's home page dedicated to the game, which isn't needed. --Barek 08:38, 8 February 2007 (PST)
 * 1) Do not permit listing of individual fansites, refer questions to this article or the official list linked from this article.
 * 2) Only create fansite articles as redirects to this article. This allows searches for them to generate matches that can take them here, and from here to the official site's list.
 * 3) Allow articles on fansites that are officially recognised by ArenaNet within yet-to-be determined formatting guidelines.
 * 4) Allow articles on any fansites, officially recognized or not.
 * Good analysis. I think your points are well made, and I believe you've covered the full range of possibilities. I personally agree with your recommendations as being the most workable, inclusive, and responsible and as the best for the community as a whole.  --Gaile Gray 20:54, 8 February 2007 (PST)
 * Finally a talk page about policy that isn't an hour's worth of reading. :P  I personally like option 2 the best and would even suggest we put in a list of the official fansites with direct links to them from this article.  That way if someone searches for a specific fansite, they're taken here, and can then go straight to that site.  That site will then give them a much better idea what that site is like than any article we could create.  --Rainith 22:04, 8 February 2007 (PST)
 * I like Option 2 the most too. The fansites already have a webpage, so there's little need to have a wiki page on it.  When they're listed on this page, though, a blurb (character/word limit might be needed... generating more work, which is just a pain) might be worthwhile.  Some fansites tend to have some feature that distinguishes them from others, though several seem to have grabbed what's good off of other sites. ~ [[Image:GeckoSprite.gif]] Pae 23:59, 8 February 2007 (PST)
 * Based on the comments above, I now lean towards the modified version of Option 2 where we list any officially recognised fansites in their appropriate section in this article, with a link to the fansite and short blurb of what they contain on their site (similar to what is found on the official page already linked from here). Then have redirects created for each officially recognised fansite that points to this article (to take people here automatically if the do a search for a fansite name).  It'll be relatively easy to manage verifiability in this article, as you can just compare this article to the official list already linked to from here. --Barek 13:42, 9 February 2007 (PST)
 * Just thinking ahead, but do you think that the fansite page would need to be protected? I'm hoping that people wouldn't try to sabotage other fansites (or just at random), but it seems possible (with guilds, if they're included, too).  I guess that's also true overall once this wiki is announced. ~ [[Image:GeckoSprite.gif]] Pae 16:21, 9 February 2007 (PST)
 * If it gets vandalized, we can protect it, we should not pre-emptively protect it. And I agree with 2 (plus list) as well. --Xeeron 16:29, 9 February 2007 (PST)

Option 2 seems like the best to me. LordKestrel 16:31, 9 February 2007 (PST)
 * Ditto, for all the reasons mentioned by the other editors above. --Dirigible 16:33, 9 February 2007 (PST)

I do not think we should have redirects from "www.guildwarsguru.com" to "fansite" as the original searching user may not get what just happened. I think he should get a simple "Guild Wars Guru is a fansite of Guild Wars." article and then and external link to Guru. We can add the description of Guru from the official site, and that's pretty much it. Nothing more, nothing less. Either that, or no listing at all. But providing shoddy information is not really an option. --Karlos 04:22, 10 February 2007 (PST)
 * Actually, I was thinking more along the lines of redirects from "Guild Wars Guru", not from "www.guildwarsguru.org". As for redirect vs. small articles - the redirects never caused problems on Gwiki for names of keys, chests, inscriptions, etc.  People understand that sort of thing.  If on this page we add a copy of the list from the official site (which is factual listings, so should be usable) and have links to all fansites from that, then I think the redirect from the individual article names is reasonable.  Especially as it would show the user other fansites as well, so they may see some they may not have otherwise known existed. --Barek 07:47, 10 February 2007 (PST)

How about specifically listing all the Guild Wars-related wikis?
There were talks about not having "favorites" in terms of which fansites to list, and which fansites not to list, but I think "GuildWars-related wikis" is a sufficiently unique category that perhaps we should have a section specifically listing them? Especially the foreign-language ones, some of which may be highly incomplete and could use more exposure (and perhaps not recognized as a listed fansite by Anet). -PanSola 00:06, 23 February 2007 (EST) BTW: I'm interested why GuildWiki lost its Fansite status, too. The only reason I could think off was the sale to Wikia which I do not think to be correct for content released under the Creative Commons license. --numma_cway 14:35, 8 September 2008 (UTC)
 * I disagree. I have no problem listing all fansites recognised by ArenaNet on their fansite page as that gives a clear criteria for inclusion.  Openning the doors further to sites that are not recognised by ArenaNet is much harder to define the level at which it qualifies to be included here.  Lets say a guild creates their own wiki and it contains under 100 articles, would that be included?  By your criteria above, it would.  If we needed to tighten the restriction, what would be the threshold?  I find it much simpler both for setting criteria and for verifiability to use the list on the guildwars.com website as the criteria for inclusion here. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 10:41, 23 February 2007 (EST)
 * (Yes, i know it has been over a year but I want to spark the discussion again) Why don't we list all (within reason) Guild Wars sites; we are not talking things like the examples that Barek gave.  I think Pansola's suggestion was based around the fact that GuildWiki and it's sister wikis (other languages) are not listed as fansites when they truly are (that obvious by over 16,000 articles) common sense will tell majority of the community what should be listed and what shouldn't be.  PanSola is correct, there are many Guild Wars wikis in languages other than English; and they don't get worked on because noone knows that they even exist.  So, let us discuss this matter :) -- Shadowphoenix [[Image:User Shadowphoenix Necromancer.png|19x19px|Please, talk to me; I'm so lonely ;-;]] 14:03, 11 July 2008 (UTC)
 * GuildWiki was listed on the guildwars.com fansite list at the time this article was created, as a specialty fansite. I'm not sure what got them removed from that list, but they are obviously no longer on it, and there's probably a reason for it.
 * As for your actual suggestion.... how do you define "within reason"? [[Image:User Aiiane-a.gif|Go to Aiiane's Talk page]] (Aiiane - talk - contribs) 15:42, 11 July 2008 (UTC)
 * If this project still exists or if someone is interested in other wikis, take a look at this list. It's in German but you should get the main information anyway or use Google's language tools.

First draft
This is a first draft to help get the conversation moving again. It's based on comments at Guild_Wars_Wiki_talk:Community_portal.

I believe their are four basic options for having fansite information on this site. They are: This draft is based on option 2, using a specified criteria for notability. Personally, I could also support option 3, but I'm only preparing one proposal for now as I wasn't prepared at this time to draft formatting guidelines or a template for individual articles. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 01:11, 23 May 2007 (UTC)
 * 1) Do not permit listing of individual fansites, refer questions to this article or the official list linked from this article.
 * 2) Only create fansite articles as redirects to the Fansite article. This allows searches for them to generate matches that can take them the the main listing on this site.
 * 3) Allow articles on fansites that meet a criteria of notability (those officially recognised by ArenaNet or other criteria) within yet-to-be determined formatting guidelines.
 * 4) Allow articles on any fansites, officially recognized or not.

No point in listing all the fansites. Guild Wars has all the sites right on their page already.--Eloc 01:14, 23 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Please see Guild_Wars_Wiki_talk:Community_portal. That list has been mentioned previously, and there's strong support already given to expand beyond that list - the question is to what extent. This proposal is a first draft to define a possible level of expansion. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 01:24, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

Redirect
Given the talk for redirect formatting, the redirect cat would be Category:Fansite redirects. But I'm wondering if we even need such redirects. Would anyone even think of searching for "Guild Wars Guru" here? If I wanted to find a fansite via a search engine, I'd google. -- ab.er. rant  21:43, 22 May 2007 (EDT)

Level of detail
The notability criteria looks very sensible to me, but I can't help but wonder about the lack of detail proposed for the table.

In its current form, the article proposes, "The fansite list will be maintained as a table. The table will maintain basic information helping users compare features offered by each fansite." Is the goal truly to compare the sites' features? I can see how a list of statistics helps fight the PoV problems that are begging to ensue, but a features list is a battleground of sorts, and the site with the most features is not always the best. How about something like this?

Healbot Blues
Healbot Blues is a fan webcomic illustrated by Senpai Lee that frequently features the hardships faced by Monks. The skill Holy Haste may have been created after a "Holy Haste" request from the title character in Healbot Blues (Guru post by Gaile), yet it was implemented as a as a casting speed increase and not a running speed increase.

Link: Healbot Blues

The Gear Trick
The Gear Trick is a fan webcomic illustrated by Rain King. Its name was derived from a term that referred to using a bundle tank, though that AI was removed from the game in the April 25, 2006, update. Et cetera...

How does this look? -- Dashface 03:39, 23 May 2007 (EDT)


 * The reason for a simple list of features is that the extremely large number of fansites would make a central page far too big if it contained text descriptions for each one (just look at the official site's list to see how many exist - and the notability criteria would allow for even more entries).
 * I had planned to make an alternate proposal at Guild Wars Wiki:Fansites/alternate which would be based on the third option I listed above, where any notable sites would have their own page instead of being a redirect to the central fansite article as is proposed here. If that one were used, then it would be more reasonable to have longer descriptions within yet to be defined parameters.  I just hadn't had a chance to create the alternate proposal yet.  Feel free to create it, I need to leave for work, so won't be able to work on it myself until at least this evening. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 11:04, 23 May 2007 (EDT)


 * I agree with Dashface, even one-line summaries are preferable to a table which will never have enough columns to do each fansite justice. --Xeeron 13:52, 23 May 2007 (EDT)


 * Having a page for each site seems a bit like overkill. Would my suggestion of having a page for each type of site be sufficient in keeping the articles at an appropriate length? (Some sites would likely be listed under more than one page if they are more than one type, such as GWG, which is not solely a forum.) -- Dashface [[Image:User_Dashface.png]] 05:40, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
 * I think the reason that a site would be listed on multiple fansite-type pages is exactly the reason not to have them. For better visibility and a free link, I'd go and superficially add whatever it is that I need to add to fit into all the fansite-type pages.
 * Xeeron, what sort of columns are you referring to? To me, we only need 3 columns: Name, type, description. We use a template to restrict the values for "type" and the length for "description". Would that not suffice? -- ab.er. rant [[Image:User Ab.er.rant Sig.png|sig]] 06:10, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Would that table be useful to anyone? -- Dashface [[Image:User_Dashface.png]] 10:23, 28 May 2007 (UTC)


 * I am refering to this line in the proposal which I disagree a lot with: Columns indicating Yes or No on if the site offers news, forums, pricing of unique items, auctions, chat (IRC, etc), comics, builds, guild listing, or fan fiction.
 * In my mind, the fansite page should not be a table, but rather a bullet point list. Each bullet point being something like:
 * Fansite 1 name - Short one or two sentences describing what the fansite is about.
 * Fansite 2 name - etc etc
 * These could potentially be ordered by "types" of fansites once the list gets bigger. --Xeeron 13:08, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
 * I see. I don't particularly favor either way, but I think your list idea is more accommodating to general users. -- ab.er. rant [[Image:User Ab.er.rant Sig.png|sig]] 14:20, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
 * If we wish to split it up amongst a small number of pages, why not have a page for each type of fansite as categorized by ArenaNet? I.e. a page for Elite Fansites, a page for Honored Fansites, a page for Specialty Fansites, and then a page for regular fansites? Yes, the last will be longer, but can also most likely be summarized in less detail as regular fansites are generally smaller-sized. [[Image:Aiiane-a.gif]] (Aiiane - talk - contribs) 20:25, 28 May 2007 (UTC)


 * In addition to Name, type, and description, I would also prefer to see a column for language. The official list contains multiple language fansites.  I, for one, would hate to waste my time following links just to find the clicked site is in a language which I don't understand.  The other columns I'm not a big advocate on either way - I just added them as I thought someone might find it useful.  But, as it seems to be sticking point with little support, I'll remove that line from the proposal. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 19:57, 7 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Question ... if we allow a short description, what's the best way to contain bloat? My main concern is that one person's idea of short description may be something that fits on one or two lines (arbitrary estimage = 25 words or less), while another person's interpretation may be one paragraph of a half-dozen sentences (coming in closer to 250 words or less).  Do we want to go through the hassle of defining a max number of words ... or just leave it open, and have faith that subsequent editors will purge down descriptions if/when the list starts to grow long due to wordiness? --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 20:03, 7 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Have faith =) --Xeeron 20:58, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

Accept or reject
Are there any opposition to actually documenting fansites? I think I'm fine with the concept of it at the moment. One thing I'd like to bring up is what language of fansites are we encompassing? Notability is only when it's listed on guildwars.com? What about the official websites in other languages? The official fansite listing includes non-english fansites as well... do we create redirects and list fansites that do not have a single word in English? -- ab.er. rant  01:53, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
 * My stance on languages (same as on non english guilds) is that I prefer not to include non-english pages, but as long as there is no non-english official wiki, I don't think we should forbid such entries.
 * Regarding notability, I am happy with the list in the proposal. --Xeeron 09:59, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I don't see anything outstanding in this policy that would make me do a double-take before approving of it. [[Image:User Aiiane-a.gif|Go to Aiiane's Talk page]] (Aiiane - talk - contribs) 15:05, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I agree, it looks fine to me. - anja  [[Image:User Anja Astor sig icon.png|talk]] 15:14, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
 * THANK YOU!
 * I've been kicking this subject trying to get something approved since February (pretty much ever since this wiki was first created). I gave up after I failed to get any real movement on this proposal.  I can fully support individual articles, in the section above I had even mentioned an intent to create an alternate proposal for that method instead of a list, I originally ran out of time, then forgot to come back to it.  I prefer a central list - but my real sticking point is needing the criteria of notability  - as long as that exists, I'm fine with the individual articles.  It actually simplifies some tasks ... such as if the notability of an entry is questioned on its talk page, the justification for notability can be linked to from the individual article or the article's talk page - keeping everything nicely contained and easy to review. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 16:41, 30 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Next issue ... formatting guidelines! Category tags ... templates ... --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 16:45, 30 August 2007 (UTC)


 * I am happy you are happy with both a list and individual articles, but just for your information, the current proposal would create a single article, not a list (also meaning we dont need to worry about cats and templates and formatting guidelines). --Xeeron 17:01, 30 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Ah. Well, just so we can move forward, I'll support a single text article (ie: I won't strongly protest, which could delay things further) - although I strongly suspect we'll need to break it into sub-articles just to contain the size.  From the standpoint of usability, I just don't see a series of text paragraphs, potentially on multiple sub-pages, as being as useful as a list, but it's better than nothing.  For readability I still think a table list would be much better for searching - or optionally individual articles links via a central list or via a DPL page.  But, lets move ahead with what we have - at least it's a start. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 18:14, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

So can we agree that at least until the existence of wikis in other languages, it's okay to list non-English fan sites here (as long as they utilize an English description?), and that the notability criteria are fine as-is? (Aiiane - talk - contribs) 23:37, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Looks like it. -- ab.er. rant [[Image:User Ab.er.rant Sig.png|sig]] 02:15, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
 * I'll leave this for another day or two then, but after that unless I see some significant objection I'm going to label this as Accepted and move it into policy, since it seems to be ready for it. [[Image:User Aiiane-a.gif|Go to Aiiane's Talk page]] (Aiiane - talk - contribs) 05:33, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Sounds good to me. --Rezyk 07:41, 4 September 2007 (UTC)