Guild Wars Wiki talk:Content retention

Archive

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Talk page content

I propose the addition of "no removing talk page content" to this policy. -- ab.er.rant 06:25, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

I support this change. - BeX 06:37, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Archiving must be allowed. And disallowed content, such as copyright violations. Otherwise, yes. Backsword 08:48, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Sounds good. -- Gordon Ecker 08:57, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Support. I prefer the wording to include "archiving is allowed". --Xeeron 11:52, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

"You are not allowed to remove content from talk pages except for archiving purpose. Disallowed content and content which includes copyright violations should be removed immediately." poke | talk 11:58, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

What about moving content from one talk page to another, more appropriate talk page and marking it with {{moved}}? -- Gordon Ecker 22:42, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Gordon brings up a valid concern. Much of this can be covered by the formating guideline, but some inclusion here is warrented so that sysops can ban vadals and the like. How about this?

==Talk pages==

Exists for the purpose of discussing the topic of the article and the article itself. Existing content should be left as is unless it violates policy. Moving to a more suitable page, such as archiving, is allowed.

Backsword 01:22, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

We don't have any explicit guideline on removing vandalism from talk pages. If a new page is created with vandalism, we are allowed to delete it, and given enough discretion to determine what is and isn't vandalism in doing so. Should the same rules not apply to talk pages? I can elaborate further if needed. - BeX 04:49, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Vandalism, and personal attacks, should always be able to be removed, IMO - it doesn't really matter whether it's stated or not. Ale_Jrb (talk) 23:22, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Bexor - I think the wiki could use a discussion about whether to remove vandalism from talk pages or not, and what is or isn't vandalism. Erasculio 12:27, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

BeX, currently anyone can remove or add anything to talk spaces as we don't have a defined scope for them, thus there is no such thing as vandalising them; that is, as far as policy goes. We have a rather clear paxis for what we consider suitable content. The goal here was to define that for policy, in order to avoid the sort of conflict we had on various talk pages and the admin noticeboard. There is also the issue of user talk pages who are partly covered by the user policy, which cuases some problems. Backsword

There is no need to explain the obvious to me. I was trying to provoke discussion about perceived talk page vandalism, not wondering about whether we have policies that define legitimate (and illegitimate) talk page content. And the purpose of my comment was so that the result of the discussion could be included into a revision of this policy. Like Erasculio said, a discussion about this would be beneficial, rather than just restating the intentions of this section. - BeX 16:30, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

One personas obvious is another hidden assumptions. 21:57, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

On a perfect world, i would like to have a policy stating that "Talk pages content must be related to the asociated article. Talk pages content not strictly related to the asociated article can me moved to the proper talk page. Talk pages content can be archived when deemed appropiate. Vandalism on talk pages, or content from them that fails to meet other Wiki policies (such as GWW:NPA) may be removed without need of being archived.", but... --Fighterdoken 22:47, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

If my talk page would only be about me, it would be very short. :P Nah, on a more serious note, I don't think it's needed to be stated in a policy. A bit off-topic should always be ok, and we move stuff around quite often already. (A policy may only be needed in a world that's not perfect. In a perfect world everyone agrees anyway ;) )- anja 06:27, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

That guideline leaves plenty of room already actually. An user page is related to the user, so if the user likes pumpkins, he could talk all he wants about them on his talk page (or even on a halloween-related page, but not on Talk:Mending unless he gives a goooood reason for it). The problem i see is not really what we can put into pages, but that when someone thinks something shouldn't go here or there, people start arguing about talk pages content being untouchable (and i think we know the vocal minority rules the world). --Fighterdoken 06:37, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

As you say, in a perfect world we need no policy. As it is, I think there is general agreement that a guideline will suffice for most purposes. Especially once we get a revert policy. However, there are still vandals and other abusive types around, and a need for SysOps to handle them. With the system we have, something is needed in some policy document so that SysOps can point to that when protecting pages or blocking. Backsword 10:11, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Deletion of builds

I have tagged the following articles/categories for deletion:

• B/p ranger
• Beast Master
• Shock warrior
• Starburster
• Touch ranger
• Guide to making a build
• Category:PvP example builds
• Cripshot Ranger
• Infuser
• Lineback/Linebacker
• Barrage ranger

All these consist entirely or to a huge proportion of information about builds, which according to this policy we do not retain. Given that the discussion at Guild Wars Wiki:Policy/Builds has died and the policy shows no sign of being accepted anytime soon, they can also no longer be justified as examples for a certain policy proposal or temporary exceptions. If you know of any build related articles I missed, please let me know so I can add them here. --Xeeron 21:36, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Although I agree that in the current effective policies, these articles are not 'allowed', I do not agree with the deletion of these articles. My main reason for this: quite a number of voices on Guild Wars Wiki:Policy/Builds said that first the important stuff should be addressed in policies before the builds policy should be scrutinized. Hence the discussion on that page may seem 'dead', I don't think it is.

Personally, I also support Guild Wars Wiki:Policy/Builds as it is written right now. --  (CoRrRan / talk) 21:42, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

I second CoRrRan's views on this matter, the Builds policy is not "dead" in the "unable to gain acceptance" sense, it is on hold due to mutual, if implicit, agreement by most of those who were pushing it. The proposal is still active thus in this case I think it better to err on the side of allowance until that is resolved. The discussion was positive in tone when it was put on hold thus I don't see a reason to push for their deletion at this time. Rather, if you believe the issue to be important ask on the proposal page if there is still interest in including builds on the wiki or if it should be marked as a fail proposal there and then, if it does move to failed status, then push for the deletion of said articles. (Aiiane - talk - contribs) 22:08, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure that line was meant that strictly. If we were to take that serious, we would delete all skills articles as they are build components and thus information on builds. I don't think anyone would seriously want that. The way I've treated it has been on the line of 'no specific builds' rather than 'nothing related to builds'. Backsword 11:38, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

It is true that the builds policy is currently not discussed, but there is no prior example giving evidence that it will be passed soon. Meanwhile, the above articles are still violating this policy. If you feel that the builds policy will be enacted in a timely manner, how about giving an approximation of when that will be and I'll be happy to remove the deletion tags and put them back up at the end of that period. --Xeeron 15:02, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

It depends on how you define a build. I consider the articles in question to be definition articles for party roles, some of which happen to contain detailed build information. I think we should just trim out the prohibited content. -- Gordon Ecker 04:43, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Why don't you tell me, Xeeron? You were one of the people who decided to table it temporarily. (Aiiane - talk - contribs) 04:53, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

That edit meant that I did not dedicate any of my time to the build policy for a bit. I hope it was not understood as "noone should discuss this for now". The reason I out on these delete tags was that I did not deem it likely that the build policy will be enacted in a reasonable time frame, making the articles disallowed under GWW:CONTENT. --Xeeron 15:23, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

I wished I had time to make that policy into effect, except I'm swamped @ work. I so do not want to 'lose' those articles. --  (CoRrRan / talk) 20:20, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

The list above has links to all the articles so they can be easily restored if the situation on build content is resolved. They aren't lost. :) - BeX 06:59, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Player events VS builds

I tagged Oktoberfest for deletion. — Skuld 21:44, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Oktoberfest is an player event that has been acknowledged by ArenaNet, and IS allowed on the wiki. it should not be tagged for deletion, just so you can make a point because the pages above have been tagged Fall 21:49, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Shock axe is a build which is acknowledged by ANet (hello, premade templates, articles showing you how to use it on guildwars.com?... The above pages should not be tagged for deletion because.. theres no reason for them to be so. — Skuld 22:01, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

I think that may be the reason for them being tagged for deletion instead of speedy deletion... Don't we have like three days for discusing if each article deserves or not to be deleted and the reasons as to why or why not on their OWN talk pages? No need to vandalize other pages just to make a point, even if it is a valid one. --Fighterdoken 22:06, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

I added a deletion tag. Anyone is allowed to add deletion tags for a good reason. Vandalism is something veeeeeeeery different... — Skuld 22:09, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Not realy. Adding a deletion tag because you think the article must not be here is fine. Adding a deletion tag to a somewhat random article just because you want to make a point is vandalism (i mean, it would have made sense had you tagged every community-hosted page, but...)--Fighterdoken 22:13, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Oktoberfest is 'acknowledged by ANet'? Nope. Just because Gaile says that she'll try to be there, doesn't make it 'acknowledged by ANet'. In contrast: Mursaat Rally IS an 'acknowledged by ANet' event, since they took the time to introduce Mursaat at the event.

However, consensus was reached that we would allow player events to be mentioned on this wiki, so deletion of the article will not take place. (Gonna have to find that discussion somewhere...)

And having Skuld tag Oktoberfest for deletion is NOT vandalism in my opinion either. He does make a point there, and takes one page as an example. Personally, I find Shock warrior much more important than Oktoberfest. --  (CoRrRan / talk) 22:25, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Adding a delete tag to a valid article, for no reason other than to throw a tantrum about another article's impending deletion is vandalism in my opinion.--Pyron Sy 23:13, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Your opinion is wrong. He tagged it for deletion because he thinks it should be deleted. That alone is enough to warrant tagging the article. If he was acting in bad faith, he could have done a bunch more to show his displeasure at people wiping all mention of builds and making this wiki worse in the long run. -Auron 07:16, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

(Reset indent) "The above pages should not be tagged for deletion because.. theres no reason for them to be so." - our content policy says they are meant to be deleted. Isn't that a reason? As for the Oktoberfest article, there's nothing in the content policy which disallows such articles. If you believe something is important enough to stay on the wiki, then work on making sure it stays. - BeX 04:56, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Builds

Allow write-ups on the mechanics, history of the build, possible changes over time, and why it is no longer used (As most historic builds have been filtered out of the meta). This is a wiki, and not having articles on famous builds in general is a huge mistake. -Auron 07:34, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

How would you distinguish between "Historic" and just normal builds? -- scourge 07:41, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

An article on 55 monking, for example, would be historic, whereas an article on the specific 55 monk build used to farm colossal scimitars from first city would not. Touch Rangers, invincimonks, burst sins, shock axes etc are all historic builds (played extensively by thousands of players) - and will be the ones most likely searched for on a wiki. While we shouldn't list specific bars (where avoidable - it's pretty hard to not give specifics on stuff like shock axes, when every skill has great utility and must be mentioned), we can definitely give a blurb about it and how it's changed over time (and maybe even a section about why it isn't in the meta anymore - most historic builds have fallen out of use for one reason or another). -Auron 07:56, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

New draft

I don't really have time to do this myself, but this policy needs a rewrite.

• The "information we always retain" looks a bit out of date and I'm sure is missing other stuff we've kept
• It has no mention of player events
• It refers people to a policy for historical content that doesn't exist (historical content is being kept at the moment, and we have a template to tag content with)
• It disallows all information on builds while the build policy is stalled in discussion (whereas other topics are not disallowed despite having no policies or exclusions, etc for them)
• The part about fansites tells us to visit Talk:Fansites
• I think it needs a mention that you shouldn't use Talk: pages to try and sell your items (omg, it has happened)

As I said, if I had time I would fix this up myself but I've been busy IRL. :) I'll try and do this unless someone else gets to it before I do. - BeX 07:58, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Yea, this would be a good thing. As usual, User:Noone has gotten right on it. Backsword 05:07, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Guild Wars 2

Will we be making an amendment to this policy now that GW2W is up and interwiki links are working? Ideally, we don't want to be keeping any Guild Wars 2 on GWW when it would be better on GW2W. Any thoughts? --Santax (talk · contribs) 18:49, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

"Content specific to Guild Wars 2 will not be kept here -- instead, add the content to the Guild Wars 2 Wiki. For content involved in both games, only document the parts existent in Guild Wars here." ? —Tanaric 18:53, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Sounds good. Coran Ironclaw 20:28, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Need something explaining the use of interwiki links? "In the case of linking to articles on GW2W, interwiki links should be used using the code [[gw2:Article name]], where gw2: is the interwiki link."-- Brains12 • Talk • 21:10, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Or should that just be kept to Help:Editing? -- Brains12 • Talk • 21:18, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't see why we should ever link to Guild Wars 2 Wiki. The information can never be relevant beyond mere similarity. —Tanaric 01:40, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Because people will come here, looking for information on things about gw2, like sylvari. -- Coran Ironclaw 05:31, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Also it is likely that GW2 will have reappearances of GW1 content, whether that is locations, creatures, or character descecdants, etc. - BeX 05:57, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

New draft

Since this policy is outdated in several parts, I wrote a new draft at Guild Wars Wiki:Article retention/Draft1 to deal with all issues. Apart from some cosmetics, this is what changed:

1. Updated the part about builds to reflect the passing of the builds policy
2. Updated the part about fansites to reflect the passing of the fansites policy
3. Removed the part about the historical content policy, since we have no policy and none seems forthcomming, while at the same time we have a huge and growing amount of historical content (check Special event)
4. Inserted the part about GW2

Note that unlike 1&2 which simply remove outdated phrasing, 3 is a real change in policy: Up till now this policy says we do not retain historical information, while in fact we do. With the changes, historical content would not be mentioned (neither as stuff we always keep, nor as stuff we forbid). --Xeeron 21:57, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Update

This needs an update... "The key word in the above paragraph was "current." Outdated information and one-time events (hereafter collectively referred to "historical information") will be dealt with through a separate policy. ", "Guild Wars Wiki does not retain information phrased as facts about the future", "Our policy on fansite information is currently being discussed at Talk:Fansite." That's just generally skimming the page. -- Brains12 \ talk 20:50, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Oh wow, it does need an update. What do you propose we change in it to what? — ク Eloc 貢 03:10, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

This has been true for almost a year now. See my comment to BeX. Backsword 11:07, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Skimming through Xeeron's Guild Wars Wiki:Article retention/Draft1, it looks fine. Shall we adopt it first and then see to updating it further if necessary? -- ab.er.rant 06:25, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm ok with that. -- Brains12 \ talk 14:11, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Just a minor question about the draft. Would then linking to fansites on articles be prohibited? Specifically, i would like to refer to LDoA, where the link actually ends pointing to a place where there is more information available than what would be healthy to hold in such article, so removing them could induce people to start adding more guides and tips and garbage in general (even though the talk page has proven to help in preventing that).--Fighterdoken 23:05, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

The fansites link should point to list of fansites. -- Gordon Ecker 02:28, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

How would the structure for pointing references in the example given here work? I was thinking on something along the lines of "More information on this can be found in the ((list of fansites | insert fansite name here))", but since the reference would be too vague, probably it would be better to just remove the reference altogether. After all, the fansites list only points to main pages, not specific sub-sections of each fansite, and i don't think it would be good to break it for allowing different sub-sections to be shown (even if allowing that could be an alternative).--Fighterdoken 05:23, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

I think Gordon was referencing the link on the draft, but I could be wrong. As for your example, I wouldn't think there is a problem with linking to an ArenaNet-recognised fansite (e.g. the Pre Searing one). Of course, it wouldn't be a good idea to link to a 'personal' website (such as the hfff thing we had a while ago) from articles, but just the "big" ones that are on the list. The draft doesn't specify whether linking to such is prohibited, just that having information about them is (other than List of fansites). -- Brains12 \ talk 13:27, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

I think this is why other subpolicies are linked rather than summarised. I suggest the draft is changed to link to the fansite policy instead. Backsword 20:23, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

I'd prefer a full rewrite, with the process involved, but given that being unlikely, this is a clear improvment. Backsword 20:23, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

If no one has any objections, can we move this draft into effect now? Backsword 07:31, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

This hasn't gotten the attention I hoped for, but as everyone who has bothered has been positive, I say we give it a week and if there is no objections, we implement. Backsword 08:42, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

No objections here.-- Gordon Ecker 09:02, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Rename to Guild Wars Wiki:Content

IMO we should consider renaming the page to Guild Wars Wiki:Content, as it governs both which pages we keep and which content is specifically allowed or disallowed within pages (for example no dynamic price information). -- Gordon Ecker 01:36, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Good idea, the name is a bit misleading atm. - anja 07:34, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Agreed. Calor 01:17, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes.--People of Antioch 02:35, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I had the same thought a while back (but couldn't be bothered). One thought I had then was that just "content" may be problematic, as it sounds as a portal or listing of some sort, this being the project space, so I thought the perhaps "content policy" or "content scope" would be preferable. Backsword 08:47, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Hmmm... this looks like a stalled consensus. Can I re-propose to rename this into "Guild Wars Wiki:Content retention" instead? Since it deals specifically with pieces of information within articles rather than articles themselves. -- ab.er.rant 03:26, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Sure. -- Gordon Ecker (talk) 04:18, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

I don't care either way. --Xeeron 13:35, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Guild Wars novel trilogy

At PAX, a novel trilogy taking place between GW1 and GW2 has been announced, which falls on the border between GW1 and GW2. How should we handle this? -- Gordon Ecker 01:36, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Have it on both wikis, imo. Since it relates to both games, and isn't specifically tied to one of them. - anja 07:33, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Examine the content and the wikis' respective goals. Since this falls in between both games but has nothing to do with either in some sense of directness, they're not vital. However, having them couldn't hurt. --People of Antioch 07:35, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

We "handle" it by acknowledging that the books exist but we do not acknowledge the contents of those books, since they will be irrelevant to the game. I don't look forward to having to say "this paragraph is game lore but that that paragraph is book lore". -- ab.er.rant 13:54, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

This is Guild Wars Wiki. That is Guild Wars lore. Need I say more? Calor 14:26, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

How is game lore and book lore not related? Some of our lore writings comes from books too. Those the come with the game, yes, but still books and not in game. - anja 15:10, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Have to agree with Anja and Calor on this one. -- Salome 15:16, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

We already document things like The Battle for Kyhlo, so I don't see how the books should be any different. -- Brains12 \ talk 15:22, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Actually, I'm not exactly in favor of duplicating all the story pages on the wiki. Links to those pages as background material on Guild Wars Prophecies would have sufficed, but that's another issue. I'm not sure we're all on exactly the same page. From your question Brains, are you basically implying that we should be wikifying word-for-word all of the novels? Another point for us all to consider is that the novels deal with the transition from GW1 to GW2. We seem to have already settled on leaving most of that to the GW2 wiki, not here. And finally, they haven't even decided on the author yet. It's really premature to be even thinking about it now. It's like that discussion on how we should handle GW2 wiki. -- ab.er.rant 16:05, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

I think we should wait a bit closer to the books' release to make a final choice on what we are going to do about the books, but imo; they should be on both wikis --Shadowphoenix 16:22, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Hmm.... although I do think they should be on A wiki, i'm not sure it should be on both. As the events that transpire in the novels will take place after the events of GW1 has ended, thus they will primarily serve as background lore for GW2 building on that contained in GW1. SO although I think they are wiki worthy, I am also kinda leaning to them being a GW2 wiki article rather than a GW1 article, but that's just my opinion. :) -- Salome 16:29, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

I meant that if our current process is to document that kind of lore story, we should continue it for other such stories. Of course, I agree that we need to wait and see what the content of those books are in order to decide which wiki to put it on, but I don't agree that we shouldn't be documenting them (taking into account their size and content) considering we document things like Movement and the page I linked. If we decide to get rid of those things, then I'd oppose documenting these books too; I'm for being consistent in what we document. -- Brains12 \ talk 16:52, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

This is digressing, but the thing is, I just don't think this policy mentions that we retain external lore stuff. External gameplay-related stuff, yes, but not lore. I just didn't care enough about it to lobby for their removal, since being able to have wiki-links sort of gives them some usefulness. -- ab.er.rant 08:35, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

The mention of canon in the "information we always retain" section could be interpreted as applying to all official lore. -- Gordon Ecker 08:51, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Eh, I think people are jumping the gun here. Unless they have sources I don't, we don't know enough to make an informed decision. Let's just wait until we know more. Backsword 08:53, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Player character pages

IMO an explicit prohibition against player character pages in the main namespace within the restrictions on content section would be useful when tagging misplaced character pages for deletion. Another option would be to cover it in a player and fan content guideline. -- Gordon Ecker (talk) 03:15, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

Possibly an echo of the Guild page restrictions. Other than that, they should just be moved to the appropriate userspace, and the redirect then falls under the R1 deletion reason. -- Wyn 03:19, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

I've written up a draft guideline at Guild Wars Wiki:Formatting/Player and fan content. -- Gordon Ecker (talk) 04:30, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

Community-hosted events

I think we can all agree that something like this article isn't appropriate for the mainspace. Even something like Wintersday with Mr Freebies isn't consistent with our usual mainspace documentation - it reads like a personal userpage/guildpage or advertisement. A lot of the pages in Category:Community hosted events are along the same lines.

I'm not sure exactly how we started making these articles, but I'm guessing it was to document past events which were well-known in the community and have been talked about by ArenaNet (like the Mursaat Rally), which somewhat fits our documentation goal. However, now they're being created, as I said, like advertisements or personal pages. I think we need to clarify what these event pages are for and to what extent we should document them.

Since ArenaNet are maintaining http://www.guildwars.com/community/news/, that seems like a good place to start - document the well-known and ArenaNet-'endorsed' events (since they'll be the most talked about and possibly the most searched for). As with any other article, we should go for neutrality and third-person explanation rather than "hey guys come to our awesome event, i'll give you stuff". Another route we could go down is having one central community event page with summaries of the events, instead of separate articles for each.

That's assuming we want them in the first place, obviously - we could add something in the policy to restrict such pages to the user- or guild-space. However, if we do retain these articles in the mainspace, they should be done correctly. -- Brains12 \ talk 13:57, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

I agree. Not-very-well-known community events should be in the hosting guild's guild: namespace, not in the main. Any articles in the main space need to be written appropriately. -Auron 14:11, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I agree, but I would still like to keep them in the main space. Related to that is something I noticed yesterday: On the wiki we have the following two pages: Wintersday in July 09 and Wintersday in July 2009, the last referring to the official in-game event, and following our common naming scheme for recurring events. The first one is however is a community hosted event by Blade Radio, with once again very Main space unlikely formatting (which really should be made better). Apart from the article's content and layout the page name is the one that disturbs me most. Having names of two related things, but on the other hand completely different things, that similar is not good. As our main task is documenting the game, we should give the official event more precedence, which also means that there should be no similar named page with different content.

What I try to say is that we maybe should also make people giving their events clear names, that they are not official and hosted by players. In this case a more appropriate name would be for example "Wintersday in July 09 with Blade Radio", naming the host directly in the title. However the problem about renaming those pages is that, in this case for example, it is already linked by the official site, so we should notice ArenaNet then of any name changes (and ask people to give their pages a better name in the first place).

To Auron's point, maybe we should only allow those events in the namespace, that are promoted by ArenaNet on their page (or rather, will be promoted, because when they link to the event page, the event page should already exist). poke | talk 14:14, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

I would not agree that there is community concensus against such articles. I have in the past pointed out that they are a hole in our content scope; we allow them, to some degree, but there has been no discussion leading to concensus about where the lines go.

I'd agree that the formating is no good, but then, when you think so, just change it. Backsword 14:20, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

I disagree with summaries of events. The whole point of a whole page is to outline everything that will happen in an event, as it often cannot be explained in a paragraph summarising the event. Have you read the pages? However, you pose a valid point. Maybe you could have an event's page in a sort of "waiting room" thing, and if it gets approved by ArenaNet and mentioned on the community news section of the site, it could be moved to another section which is more public. This page should also have a picture of the mention on the community news, as a sort or reference. --Burning Freebies 18:42, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

What I've been doing so far is removing formatting like background colours, borders, stylised colourful headers, etc, and rewording the articles to be in the third-person and neutral. Depending on their relevancy or appropriateness, I've also been removing some youtube and forum/website links and the like. I'm not keen on the waiting room idea, but I haven't actively done anything about what requirements an event would need to be documented (e.g. mentioned on gw.com). I think I've only edited a couple of event pages so far; it was my intention to get some sort of precedent and agreement on how an event page should be formatted, then create a guideline based on the general consistencies and styles that have come about and are appropriate. -- Brains12 \ talk 19:44, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

I don't think we should have all those YaRR, or Freebies events in the mainspace, they are--as mentioned read as a personal userpage/guildpage/advertisement. I like the idea of only arenanet endorsed events being documented in mainspace, and everything else being moved to user/guildspace C4K3 Talk 21:00, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

Not sure how I missed this but anyway I'd agree with moving/hosting the majority of them in the guild/user space and only having notable events that are promoted by ArenaNet in the mainspace. Also I'd agree with the formatting requirements Pling brought up as well. --Kakarot 04:32, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

I can tell you that Blade Radio started the Wintersday in July event, and Anet took it from their idea, so forcing Blade to change the name of their event/page, is, imo wrong. I would say an {{otheruse}} note on both would be most appropriate. -- Wyn talk 01:51, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Okay, I have a bit to say on this topic. First off I want to make it clear why our page name for our event "Winter's Day in July 09" was named the way it was. All Parties involved, Anet and Blade Radio, know the events "Winters Day in July 2009" & "Winter's Day in July 09" have the same name. Thus no party had a problem with either event having/sharing the exact same name. Second as for naming the page "Wintersday in July 09 with Blade Radio", that would sit there and look like we are advertising the station. We have done our best to not "advertise" our station when we host these community events. Thus we keep our Station name out of the page event name. Also, you guys sit here and say that all these special decorations and coding aren't needed. To an extent, I agree with you. But at the same time I must disagree with you. If you look at all the pages Anet does about their events you will see they look really amazing. Also, not everyone knows the coding for the format that the official anet events use. Instead of striking down the creativity of the event coordinators', maybe only allowing so much would be a better idea. Another idea would be to make a transition into that kind of format, rather than just expecting people to stop their fancy coding. I think there are both pros and cons to this situation and I think that until a full decision is reached, no one's event pages should be changed or touched by anyone but the event coordinators'. - Tesla 02:11, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

You'll notice that ArenaNet's "really amazing" event pages are on their website only - when they're copied over to the wiki, the articles use formatting that's consistent with our general formatting guidelines. They advertise how fancily they want, but we document according to our own style and formatting. The same should go for player events. It's not about "striking down the creativity" (though that's inevitably an after effect of it, if we're to indeed call it "creativity"), it's about consistency and appropriateness. Also, since it is a wiki and the articles are in the mainspace, they should be open to edit by everyone. That said, you can be as creative as you want if you wish to move those articles into a user- or guildspace, and you'll get a degree of edit-control, too.

Regarding the Wintersday in July events, I'd be happy with appending something general like "(player created event)" instead of "with Blade Radio". -- pling 09:53, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

So according to what you post, because its open to anyone, anyone can go to any main page and just sit their and post whatever they want. Doesn't matter if its true or not because "they should be open to edit by everyone". Really now? Come on. Please re-read what you are posting. I personally go through alot of trouble to make sure that our events are wonderful and keep up with Anet. I speak with people at Anet about our up coming events and plan our events to work along side with them. Why should we be forced to (player created event)? Wasn't that the whole point behind community hosted event code?:

If not, then what is the point to that? Maybe I miss understood more about wiki than I thought. Either that or people are just changing things a tad to much. Once again I will state that if you want to change the format to a more professional one, I don't think thats a huge problem, but leave the old event pages alone as they are already done. Why go in and edit it? There is no point to it except to waste time. Second, if the Sysops want to implement that sort of format it should be a smooth transition. First by cutting back some creativity and then simply having a one type of format everyone can use. Not changing the format by cutting all creativity all at once. Now Pling, I understand your a Bureaucrat, However I am sure other users will agree that what I am saying is not unreasonable. I am trying to simply say that right now you are wasting your time with editing old pages. There is no point in messing with event pages that are old. Right now what you personally are doing, is going to make people think that you are tryiing to strike down creativity. Why not start a petition or a motion about it? Ask all the wiki users what they think! This involves them too. I will repeat myself once more though, this should be handled in a proper way. Not just by going around and removing people's hard work. Ask them to change it. Allow some creativity. I am not saying to allow a lot, but asking everyone to use the same old format is dull and boring. People don't like dull and boring. Regardless, If you push for this to be the new format, then I will have to push for a petition because I believe that people should be at least allowed some creativity. With that, I will end this post. - Tesla 14:30, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Just throwing in my thoughts, these pages have become advertisements or quasi-official sites for these events, which is not the original intention of community hosted event pages as far as I am aware. The point was to document events that have occurred, or for large events will occur. Any advertising should be done off-site. Any prettifying can be on the actual site for the event, rather than here on the wiki. The Mursaat Rally page is a fairly good example of how the page should be, although I am unsure about the gallery section, that seems more like a fanart section than anything else. What we should have is a neutral, third party description of the event, with a link to any external site or forum thread that holds basically everything that is currently on most of these pages.

Brief note to Tesla, do you seem to misunderstand how wikis in general work and what "player managed" means. Every page on this site can be edited by anyone. Any edit can be reverted by anyone. Almost every page, except for example some ArenaNet pages, on this wiki is "player managed". We work towards a consensus of what people think is correct. Pling cannot implement anything on his own. Neither can I, neither can you. These community event pages are essentially being implemented, maintained and written by one person, or a handful of people in some cases, this is something which at the moment is more appropriate to the user space. Misery 15:09, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Like I said before, I must have misunderstood somethings. Regardless, I see the point of doing such yet at the same time I personally would like to see alittle more creativity allowed to a user event page. Maybe nothing overly special but something were we can have a little creativity. Something that allows us to make our event slightly different then the average event. Now I know Anet does this and that with their event pages but come on, you can't honestly tell me that the format doesn't get a little boring to look at after sometime! While there is nothing wrong with the format from like [Mursaat Rally]] its still bland in my opinion. It show nothing unique. This is something that bothers me. Each event should be allowed so much. Maybe instead of completely making it one format maybe we can all talk over a few different ideas? I'd like to see some creativity. Second, I am quite aware that anyone can edit the pages. My point was just because a person can, does not always make it right. However that is not the point now. Moving on you say that this is something more suited for user space, but I must disagree. Wiki is used as a community link for all of Guild Wars players and lets face it, its easier to tell them to just do a search on wiki for "Mursaat Rally" rather then being forced to say something like "Go to my user page and you'll see I have a link to events I've planned there. Under there you will see the link to the Mursaat Rally info"...."Oh, you don't know my username? Its ____". See the problem? Its so much more hard. Third point, you guys say that this is for documenting stuff and yet you suggest moving some events off the main page; Let me ask you this, what about those players who don't have their own website? What about those players who don't know how to do html coding? You know, those players who have to ask for their friends to help them post their event on wiki? What about people like Daniel who started with not being known at all? He got some of his start from wiki. Why take down less big events? That {community hosted event} code...Does it specify that the event must be so big? Does wiki say anywhere that to post a community hosted event it must be so big or that it must be submitted to Anet for the community news? To the best of my knowledge it doesn't. So why change it? Why make less known event planners suffer? This will make it harder on the community to find events. Even Blade Radio has it's sort of small events. For instance our 50k friday. Every friday we give out 50k in game gold. Now that would be redundant and would flood wiki if I were to even make an event page every once a month about a semi-big give away with 50k and other golds and greens and such. Does that take away from the event itself? No. Everyone has to start some where. So before anyone decides what to do with the small event planners, please keep in mind they deserve a chance to. If the main page is for documentation, then why push events to usernames or off the main area? Events become history. History is what happens today. Today is something that should never be lost and should always be remembered. How do you remember? By a memory or a document telling of that day. - Tesla 16:01, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

The closest thing we have to a "petition" on the wiki is discussion involving and inviting users to discuss - I started one here, RFC'd it, and various opinions have been given. We don't take votes on content issues (or on anything other than bureaucrat elections).

When I mentioned "(player created event)", I meant in regards to the Wintersday in July events or other similar events where the name of the official event (the one which should be easiest to get to) is similar to the player event; I wasn't suggesting we put that in every player event title. On a semi-unrelated note, you can use the {{tl}} template to display a link to a template instead of using it directly, or you can use <nowiki> tags.

You're correct that no policy or defining consensus exists saying that community event pages should be of such-and-such size or importance, but that doesn't necessarily mean it should continue - the point of this discussion was to get some measure of what's appropriate for community event pages, and then make the articles consistent with that.

I don't think you're distinguishing between "documentary article for an event" and "advertisement/poster for an event". As Misery and others have said, we're aiming for the former while websites (and web-hosting sites!) can be used for the latter. You might find Nights Of The Mini Pets 09 pretty or creative, I however find it disruptive. The text is hard to read, the background is too dark, links are indistinguishable from normal text, and I have to scroll down a considerable amount to actually get to any documentary text - it's extremely inconsistent with anything in the mainspace. The talk page is similar. There's a reason Mursaat Rally isn't unique - it complies, for the most part, with our formatting guidelines, which weren't created for no reason.

By the way, could you use paragraphs to separate your points and to make your posts easier to read? -- pling 17:08, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

• Why don't we take votes on things? I think that would be useful.
• As for our event vs theirs, I think it should remain as is. I don't see a need for another tag on it besides the {community hosted event}
• As for templates I am not sure that is as cool, but blah.
• Next point you go on about the current event Nights Of The Mini Pets 09 and about its layout. So far you are the only person who has said it is disruptive, hard to read or anything else negative about it. Everyone else has said nothing but good things about it. So I am not sure how it really bothers you that much. The font is also very easy to read, I had multiple people look it over even Non-English speaking friends.
• As for making my points a little more clear, was this post better? - Tesla 18:08, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

At the very beginning, this is a wiki, and wikis don't work with votings. Why some people may find it useful or easier to just vote, voting in a public area with absolutely no control over identity (everybody can register here, as often as they want), voting get's pointless. Instead we discuss and try to find a consensus by giving good arguments that convince others. That way everybody can accept the final decision.

The idea for some disambiguation in the page title came from me, simply because – as I explained above – Wintersday in July 09 and Wintersday in July 2009 sound identical whereas the content is very different, as one is the official event as announced by ArenaNet and the other a player organized event. People looking for one or the other will find it difficult to say, which the one is they are really interested, so something in the title – whatever it is, or whatever we decide on – helps to avoid confusion over an official event vs. player organized event.

While your event pages might look good for advertising – which I agree, is important to make those events even noticed – the problem with it is simply that it doesn't fit on this wiki. This wiki is made to document the game; it is fine to document player events, including small ones, but it is important that those pages, as they are part of the wiki and it's documentation space, actually feel like a documentation. And that feeling is in the first place given by the format of the page; that includes colors and overall design and the text itself.

If you want to use special formatting to advertise your events, you should either use your userspace (as we don't have so strong rules there) or host those advertisements somewhere else; and if you are not able to host such pages yourself, I am sure that there are enough fansites that would really love to give you room for such advertisings. And I am sure they would be able to offer you much more customization than a wiki ever can.

As for documenting (I'll focus on documentation now instead of advertising for the reasons above) smaller events: As I have said, I really have no problems with that, but I fear that we might come to a point where we get more and more event pages nobody actually participates (or simply nobody is interested in, or which in the end didn't even happen). And that will become a problem, especially when we for example have 5 different player events next year for Wintersday in July. That's why it might not be a bad idea to only document those events that were actually announced by ArenaNet. That way we can be sure that people at least heard about those events. poke | talk 19:00, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

A very brief note about consensus versus voting, any further questions on this should be directed to me on my talk page. With a vote everyone gets the same weight no matter what their reason is, they could have no reason or a very stupid or selfish reason. They could also have good reasoning, it doesn't matter. With consensus people who make good points and arguments end up having more say and getting a higher weighting. Doesn't that make sense? Won't that result in a better outcome? Maybe not the most popular outcome, but it should be better. The questions are rhetorical by the way, we don't need to get into this here, so if anyone wants to discuss it, take it to my talk please. Misery 20:27, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

So, to cover a bit Poke's concern, how about we allow CHE articles as long:

• The event was given publicity by anet itself on the GW website.
• OR: The event already took place succesfully. (we could still allow users to use their userspace to create prototype articles and give them publicity on GWW:CP... or even create a GWW calendar somehow which allow us to mark in-game activities.

Also, as per Brains, leave clear somewhere that CHE articles have to follow the same format lines than other wiki articles?.--Fighterdoken 02:41, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

I agree that CHE should follow formatting guidelines. I was going through the List of proposed move, splits and merges and got to merging Pink Day in LA '07, Pink Day in LA '08, and Pink Day in LA (I'm not linking them because when I finally do merge them, it's a pain to correct all the red links). I had no idea where to start. The headers are all pink, headers have icons, the article written in first person perspective, the page had links to the GuildSpace, names to in-game characters were listed, they had banners at the top of the page, they have multiple pictures that don't really contribute anything *cough*Mursaat Rally*cough*, etc. These are things that are usually not acceptable on wikis and I was completely lost.

I tried looking around for formatting guidelines, but couldn't find any. I tried to based the page off other events, which didn't really help as they also suffer the same "flaws" (the way I see it). I ended up just giving up because it was too confusing. There's also several other events in the list, but this discussion needs to finish before they can be done.

As for them being in the mainspace, I'd also support documenting only those publicly listed on the official GW website (there was a reminder notice from Regina earlier on in the month for players to send in events in IIRC). Possibly have a sequence like:

1. Event listed in Userspace (say for Blade Radio's event (using them as an example, as it seems that where this stemmed from) they could have their own User Space where their events are advertised.
2. If the event is publicly listed on guildwars.com in the "Latest headlines" area, then if someone wants to document the event, they could create the page (or move it from the User Space). This could possibly be restricted to only after the event has finished as it could be seen as advertising. (insert Wiki's advert template here)

In short: Support formatting guidelines for CHE (similar to other pages) and support restricting them to UserSpace unless publicly listed on guildwars.com as community events.

Wall of text, with love, from ~Celestia 08:47, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

/agree C4K3 Talk 08:51, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

Thought experiment: What if there was a huge event that thad half the playerbase buzzing about it for weeks, but ANet had no part in it. Should we then refuse to document it? Backsword 09:41, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

No, but luckily we have brains that function independent of policy. Misery 10:10, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

Uh... nope, brains always functions within the policies...

In any case, i seriously doubt we will ever face a case as the one BS mentions (i have never seen a CHE where "half the playerbase talks about it" till now, so...), but if it were to happend i guess it could be discussed as an exception.--Fighterdoken 21:36, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

Retention: only CURRENT mechanics ?

I don't know how to ask this without looking stupid, but - why not keep milestone changes? For example, sometimes skills are changed (nerfed/buffed) in a drastic way, making them almost a new skill. I'd think it'd be of interest to keep that information, if only to understand some of the comments on the talk pages. Or to fully understand skill change notes. Take the 25.02.10 change to Shadow Form - being not much interested in Assassins (yet) I don't really know what changed - so I'd like to look that up somewhere - don't know where, though.--Cyberman 15:00, 26 February 2010 (UTC).

See Guild Wars Wiki:Projects/Skill history --JonTheMon 15:08, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. I knew I was missing something.--Cyberman 18:48, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

External websites and applications addendum

So something we've been unofficially doing since we lost the main versions of guildwars.com and the arenanet hosted gw1101.gtm.guildwars.com archive is replacing links with archived versions from archive.org. I'd like to see if we can bang out some sort of official policy so I don't feel like I'm reinventing the wheel each time with regards to format.

Do we note that it's archived, the archive date, the original publication date, the retrieval date? Is there a specific archive we should prefer? latest complete vs first complete for example

what about content that may crop up elsewhere? should we, going forward, pre-emptively archive arenanet content and news articles in the event something similar happens again? horrible 18:47, 8 July 2022 (UTC)

My two cents:

• Wow does this policy show its age. If we were still a more active wiki, this whole thing would need a rewrite. Probably not the only one of course.
• I would personally favor 'last good version' archives, though it shouldn't usually make a difference
• I would just note that it's archived, maybe the original publication date if relevant (and if available)
• In terms of making sure archive.org has a copy archived, absolutely yes. In terms of preemptively linking to the archived copy over a 'live' version, I probably wouldn't, but I wouldn't revert someone who did.

Maybe not the exacting specifications for a format you were hoping for, but as long as everything that needs to be accessible is, this is probably a situation where we can embrace flexibility. Of course, if you just want to decide how you're doing it and document your preferred format on the talk page here for both your future reference and others' (invent the wheel once and release the patent, metaphorically), feel free. - Tanetris (talk) 21:03, 28 July 2022 (UTC)