Guild Wars Wiki talk:Community portal/Archive 1

Purpose

Should we have this article? It would be especially helpful especially right here at the start so we can get organized and start knocking out the huge tasks before us and also to get the rules and everything clearly laid out before us. — Jyro X 22:43, 7 February 2007 (PST)

I strongly suggest that we have this article. This page would be core to the major contributors, especially for the early days of this wiki, for keeping track of the movement of tasks in the Wiki. I would also suggest to have this be placed into the Navigation panel. — Rapta (talk|contribs) 12:53, 8 February 2007 (PST)

Doh. Nice catch on the case. =P — Rapta (talk|contribs) 13:17, 8 February 2007 (PST)

If it's just going to be a list of tasks, I'd prefer to break that off into an article like Project:Task list and make the community portal a bit more presentable. I really like Wikipedia's community portal. I don't an ugly task list in the sidebar. :) —Tanaric 13:21, 8 February 2007 (PST)

I agree with Tanaric. - - BeXoR 18:36, 8 February 2007 (PST)

I don't see any editing! But seriously, edit this to your liking. — Rapta (talk|contribs) 19:33, 8 February 2007 (PST)

Goal

What is the initial goal of this wiki to get it started? Are we supposed to re-write the whole thing, or just scoof everything over from gwiki? Galil 09:58, 26 February 2007 (EST)

You can't copy things over because in 99% of cases its a breach of copyright. - BeXoR 10:19, 26 February 2007 (EST)

Not really, gwiki is under the Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license. I am aware this wiki isn't under the same license, but it is under the GFDL license, which is a similar license. — Galil 10:31, 26 February 2007 (EST)

Yes, really. Read this. The base data isn't copyright, but the way an article was written or formatted may be. - BeXoR 10:33, 26 February 2007 (EST)

Yes, I was just about to take it back actually. So I guess it's all back to square one then. — Galil 10:42, 26 February 2007 (EST)

Community portal, Projects, Discussion

Maybe I'm missing something, but right now the three of these seem very redundant with each other. Can we condense them in two pages (or ideally only one) ? --Dirigible 11:07, 27 March 2007 (EDT)

Discussion and this article naturally collapse together. However, projects should (ideally) become large enough to warrant its own article, and thus should remain separate. Somebody better than me at wikicode should prettify the community portal into something nice, like Wikipedia's. —Tanaric 13:20, 28 March 2007 (EDT)

Anyone else has something to say about this? If no one opposes by this time tomorrow, I'll merge Discussions with the Community Portal. That way we can use the Community Portal page to discuss whatever topic needs to be discussed by the community, and have Projects for tasks that need to be done. Too many important discussion topics aren't receiving the attention they deserve (the licencing copyright issue being the most recent example), so we really need to figure this out fast. --Dirigible 23:24, 29 March 2007 (EDT)

Yep, merge. We don't (and won't) have many active discussions or news that are going on at the same time that will warrant more than 1 community page. -- ab.er.rant 23:30, 29 March 2007 (EDT)

Done. As long as this page isn't neglected, it should be very helpful.

As far as appearance goes, right now this looks like a cheap version of Wikipedia's Community Portal, so if anyone who has even a shred of talent for this kind of thing (that disqualifies me) wants to give it a facelift, it'd be great. Also wondering if we should have something like a common appearance theme for Community portal, Projects, Formatting, etc., maybe with different colour schemes to differentiate between them (take a look at the Community portal and Projects pages to see what I mean). Thoughts? --Dirigible 02:06, 1 April 2007 (EDT)

Wow references

I'm really questioning if this

As announced in the press release posted on guildwars.com earlier today, Guild Wars 2 will present mounts, epic loot, an auction house and blood elves. Discussion on the formatting guidelines for articles which will document these new features have begun.

should be on this page. Sure, I understand it might be a joke, but it's written as facts and do not belong on a wiki community portal, imo. I was quite confused reading it at first. There's lots of better ways to get people to read the formatting guidelines. - Anja Astor 04:21, 1 April 2007 (EDT)

Well, I had to do something, it's April Fools' for goodness' sake. :P You're the only one that even noticed it tho, so boo to that. --Dirigible 21:59, 1 April 2007 (EDT)

I realised after I wrote it what day it was... Shame on me for not having humor :P - Anja Astor 02:00, 2 April 2007 (EDT)

Bug Reporting

I think we could add a function to this wiki that would provide a valuable resource to the Arenanet dev team. I propose that we create a policy or guideline that allows for a <Example_Article>/Bug page where the community could post bugs for particular missions, quests, bosses, etc. I envision an category name [[Category:Bug Reports]] that the development team could watch.

As an example: Kormir occasionally gets stuck behind the door at the start of the long bridge, after being released from prison during the Pogahn Passage mission. would be posted in Pogahn Passage/Bug. Anyone reading the article would see the {{bug stub}} link on the article page and could review this bug. Should they encounter the bug in game they would not be surprised, and could perhaps add a reaffirming note in the discussion page.

Since wiki is popular, and people like to be noticed for their contributions, I suggest that there will be a higher incident rate of bug reporting that what may be happening through Arenanet's current Support program. It could also decrease the number of repeated reports to Support. If a player has read about the bug report on this wiki, then encounters the bug, they'll realize its unnecessary to report it again, only to confirm that the bug is reoccurring. --Rohar (talk|contribs) 08:56, 11 April 2007 (EDT)

I oppose this idea. We are not a support tool. Guild Wars Wiki:We are not a support tool?

If ArenaNet want us to serve this function then fair enough, but a wiki lacks many of the features that a dedicated bug reporting tool possesses. LordBiro 10:22, 11 April 2007 (EDT)

But we've already added little "bug" notes to skills, missions, NPC's, and so on on the other wiki (and I would imagine that they would eventually be added here too - ie. Call of Haste reads that it effects multiple pets when it only effects the user of the skill's pet). What's wrong with adding a category tag to a bug template that can be slapped ona page then so you can see all the "bugs" the wiki has reported? Maybe not a good bug reporting tool but then you could find the errors easy enough that the wiki has had reported on the pages.

I oppose this as a tool too but as a resource I support it.--File:VallenIconwhitesmall.JPG Vallen Frostweaver 11:00, 11 April 2007 (EDT)

There's nothing wrong with that, Vallen, in fact it's already being used. :) There's already the {{Bug}} template, which autocategorises the article in question to Category:Bugs. I disagree with having subpages for this though, seems overkill; most have only one bug at most, which is hardly worthy of a page of its own. --Dirigible 12:10, 11 April 2007 (EDT)

I should have been more clear. Documenting bugs? Yes! Using a wiki in the way Rohar suggested? No. LordBiro 12:25, 11 April 2007 (EDT)

Yeah, that's what I was talking about guys I guess I missed it was there already since there are only a few places its there. I'll put it on a few things I know are bugged still. :) --File:VallenIconwhitesmall.JPG Vallen Frostweaver 10:31, 12 April 2007 (EDT)

Here's a related question, if all ranged attack skills (like Bow attacks and Spear attacks) have a possibility of not activating when on a bridge or stairway should I place the bug thingy on all those skills or are we going to just keep the info on the List of skill anomalies page? Personally, I'd like to have it in both areas since people don't look at the anomalies page when they go to look at a skill.--File:VallenIconwhitesmall.JPG Vallen Frostweaver 11:40, 12 April 2007 (EDT)

Adding it to all spear and bow attacks would be.. too much imo. Maybe add it to Spear Attack and Bow Attack only? (And List of skill anomalies of course) - Anja Astor (talk) 12:32, 12 April 2007 (EDT)

That does make sense but won't it still be overlooked? I guess, even though it may be a bit much, it is still appropriate as they are all bugged. I did add the bug tag to bow/spear attacks as you suggested. --File:VallenIconwhitesmall.JPG Vallen Frostweaver 13:13, 12 April 2007 (EDT)

It's true, it might get overlooked. But having it at all of those skills would just get out of hand. It seems like one of the less noticed bugs, if someone starts adding it to the separate skill pages (someone who doesnt read here probably) then I can see that there is a need to have it there. But not until then. Do you get my reasoning there? It's hard to explain what I mean.
Honestly, I haven't even noticed this bug in-game, myself :P - Anja Astor (talk) 13:19, 12 April 2007 (EDT)

I see what you mean but how can you not have noticed it? I noticed when GW first came out and it's been ongoing ever since (almost 2 years now). I guess you can get lost in the battle but you notice most when you shoot that interrupt at Wurm Siege or some other long casting skill (ie: Meteor Shower) and see the spell/skill not be interrupted. Then you look at your bar and do it again to see nothing happen but the button click and you do nothing beyond auto-attacking (not even energy is used). I notice it most when doing B/P runs on the last level as there are plenty of spots it happens in there. It actually is a well known bug but only if you pay attention to your skill bar and not the action on screen if you know what I mean. --File:VallenIconwhitesmall.JPG Vallen Frostweaver 13:30, 12 April 2007 (EDT)

*ahem* Maybe that tell more about my playstyle than about how easy the bug is to notice. (I don't pay much attention, plus I primarly play monk :P) - Anja Astor (talk) 14:52, 12 April 2007 (EDT)

Wiki-style suggestion forum

Usual forums allow for proposing new ideas and implementations we'd like to see, but unfortunately, they tend to get messy quickly, and are hard to search or vote on. I have a suggestion that should be implemented here preferably, that would help considerably the casual gamer to put in his opinion, his vote, and his ideas. The idea is a point-form suggestion wiki. Suggestions are broken down into categories and sub-categories, and ideas that get too large are split into a separate page, with a link to it. People get to vote on the ideas via links to forums, but can propose alternative implementations right here. Vote results can be updated here too, to show the different ideas and popularities of ideas at a glance. If developers add in a feature or are working on a feature, they can replace the votes with "in implementation" or "implemented", to show their good work :) This forum would be announced on the main page of this wiki.

Examples: [vote] links to forum pages where users can vote, and [link to details] links to wiki pages where the ideas are elaborated

Suggestions forum

Interface

Reputation system [link to details] (y: 80, n:10 [vote])

Quest tracker (y: 100, n: 0)

Gameplay

Add Summoner Class [link to details] (y: 100, n:10 [vote]) <== links to other pages because there are too many details

Add Insectoid Race [link to details] (y: 100, n:20 [vote])

Game balance

Nerf 55 monks (y:50, n:100 [vote])

Nerf touch rangers (y:10, n:20 [vote])

Economy

Trade hall (in implementation) <== developers can replace votes by "in implementation" or "implemented" as a way to keep the community informed

Reputation system: allows to flag a person's behavior during gameplay. Some of these can lead to title.

Items included

Helpful (e.g. answered questions, helped with quests / missions) <== each part of the idea can be voted on

Friendly (e.g. is pleasant with others)

Scammer (e.g. tries to steal accounts, etc)

Spammer (e.g. multiple repeated posts in a row)

Trustworthy (e.g. delivered on promises or refunded if he could not deliver)

Account-based, so making new characters does not clear the record

Summoner class: a summoning class that can pre-cast his (small) army, and is actively involved in controlling his army / fighting instead of having to constantly heal them.

Primary attribute: reduces upkeep costs of army, so you can cast more of them

Attribute 2: golem (max of 1 golem per caster)

Attribute 3: familiars (max number based on upkeep costs)

Attribute 4: spells (support, direct attacks, etc)

Both golem and familiar attributes include skills to buff them, to heal them, to cast a few different types of them, and to make them attack with special skills.

Insectoid race:

Appearance:

Praying mantis-like (y: 100, n:20 [vote])

Roolerbeetle (y:10, n:20 [vote])

Armor: exoskeleton parts

Race-specific skills: snares (e.g. cripple attack with front legs, webs) and speed boosts (wings show, but too large for flight)

Alaris 11:16, 11 April 2007

"People get to vote on the ideas (based on IPs to reduce the risk of multiple-votes)" ← it doesn't work like this, and that's where the first problem with this suggestion is. On a wiki you can setup an account in a matter of seconds, and no one can see the IP behind an username, not even sysops (the CheckUser extension would need to be installed for that). To put it otherwise, running a vote on a wiki is simply a Bad Idea. It's actually the worst place I can think of where to try implementing a voting system, because it's been designed from the ground up to be anything but that. --Dirigible 11:38, 11 April 2007 (EDT)

Thanks for the info, I didn't know that. I have changed my suggestion to reflect this, where we would rely instead on regular forums to run the votes, yet we can still show the results here. I still think that this method of proposing suggestions is a major improvement on forums. Alaris 13:13, 11 April 2007

I don't see why this it should be in a wiki. This wiki exists to document the game. Not provide an avenue for people to suggest things about the game. And if you think by just introducing categories is going to make suggestions less messy, then you're highly mistaken. Most casual users don't even understand categories and are likely to just add whatever they want wherever they want. Document the game as it is, not the game as people think it should be. -- ab.er.rant 23:38, 11 April 2007 (EDT)

The major problem with this idea is the fact that ArenaNet doesn't look for ideas here - in fact, there's a decent chance that no one from ANet will ever read this page. I know you mentioned the fansite forums, which is good - that's really the place for this sort of thing. To quote Gaile, when someone tried to suggest things on her talk page: "The best place to discuss these -- and we will see your thoughts! -- is in the fan forums." I think that says it all, really. MisterPepe talk 23:44, 11 April 2007 (EDT)

"If you build it, they will come." That is, if the idea works, it will draw people and eventually developers alike.

As for casual gamers not understanding categories, you're partly right, partly wrong. Some contributions will be misplaced, but those can be cleaned up. Most people do post in the right places in forums. The two main problems contributing to the messiness of forums I've seen is that (1) search tools require too much effort, and rarely do return the relevant information, so users that do use them stop using them, and (2) debated threads get long very quickly, so that it is hard to see what the popularity or the pro's and con's are within reading through several pages. These issues have been partly solved by making sticky posts in the form of indexes, which is very similar to what I am proposing here.

I understand that the philosophy behind Wikis is to document what is, not what should be. But then again, ANet is a company that listens to feedback and ideas, and uses that to improve the game. Playing it for 5 months now, numerous times I have witnessed "what should be"'s becoming "what is"'s.

So far, I've heard comments on the feasability of the idea here on Wiki, which is valuable feedback that I will take into consideration. For one, if I build it, I have to make sure that the categories are natural and well-explained. For two, I have to be ready to do some volunteer clean-up work. What I'd like to know, now, is whether you'd use it if it were implemented well, whether it would be useful to have. Alaris 10:16, 12 April 2007 (EDT)

The point is that this idea goes against the entire purpose of a wiki - to document. This pushes the boundaries to include new suggestions, which is something completely different. Personally? I don't want to ever see this idea implemented. It's simply un-wiki-like. While yes, ArenaNet does listen to ideas, did you see my quote from Gaile Gray? This is not a place they look for ideas, nor should it be, since a wiki isn't the place for this sort of thing to begin with. Would I use it? No. Do I want it? Very much not. If I have ideas, I'll just harass Izzy and Morello on IRC =P This is really not the place. As an afterthought, wiki articles are supposed to be NPOV - suggestions are, almost be definition, biased - the suggestion comes from wanting to see something added/removed. MisterPepe talk 11:15, 12 April 2007 (EDT)

Support accepts suggestions, as well as bug/violation reports. Anet doesn't need to split things up, use what they already have put in place, and said to use! - BeXoR 14:57, 12 April 2007 (EDT)

I have written it at the bottom of my user page, and other users are free to add in what they want (at their own risks). I hope this will be useful to at least some. Alaris 14:17, 2 May 2007 (EDT)

Yup, that's exactly the place for it :) But uh... you might want to be careful of the length (GWW:USER). GuildWiki also has quite a number of users with a list of suggestions on their user pages. -- ab.er.rant 20:50, 2 May 2007 (EDT)

Mid-April

Two months later, here we are. Things around the site are starting to take shape, the basic and most critical necessities have been taken care of, the wiki is now in "normal operation" mode. Which brings me to the reason why I'm posting here. Now that the most urgent matters are out of the way, should we change our focus towards helping new users? There's been a lot of new people around here in the last two months, trying to contribute for a few days before getting tired/getting bored and moving on. Not all of them, but for the vast majority of new users this is indeed the case and it's understandably so, these last two months must have appeared chaotic to an outsider's eye. Since content-issues have become less urgent, I think we need to change our priorities somewhat, giving more importance to welcoming new users and helping them help the wiki, rather than continuing doing everything ourselves. Ways to do this:

1. New users don't know how they can help, where they can help, or even whether their help is needed at all. We need to give them a hand with that.
   • GWW:PROJECT is one way to do so (and probably the most suitable). We need to encourage new users to take a look at those projects and participate in them as much as possible. We also need to design those projects so they're friendly to newcomers (clear instructions on how to do everything, divide each task into smaller chunks, etc).
   • Easy straightforward tasks are another way. For example, yesterday I added disambiguation notices to the mission articles, a simple copy/paste job which takes mere seconds for each page. Today Aberrant went through a lot of explorable areas removing the "party size" parameter from the infobox. Now, what if we hadn't done those tasks ourselves, but added them to a To-Do list somewhere (like the one on GWW:PROJECT)? Tasks like that would be an ideal way for new users to start getting involved with the wiki. They're easy, they're simple, they're hasslefree. Ideally I think that To-Do list should always have at least 5-10 tasks of that kind available, so no one has to wonder "what can I do?" Try to look at this from their perspective, not ours. Most of us are aware of what's going on in the wiki, where the effort should be concentrated; new editors aren't.
2. New users need to be welcomed and encouraged to take part in discussions, to give their opinions. It's the only way we can get the community here to grow, by making newcomers feel they are a part of it.
   • One way is by directing them to discussions as much as possible. If someone uploads userspace pictures without properly naming them, don't point them to the policy, but point them to the talk page of that policy instead, to where that particular issue was discussed. "You're supposed to do it this way, you can find the discussion where that was decided here <link>".
   • Another way is by updating and using this Community Portal as much as possible. I've been trying to keep it updated, but I'm not even sure if the regular contributors are paying any attention to it; if they aren't, then why should new users bother either? I realise that most of us are able to keep up with what's happening by simply looking at our watchlists and recent changes, but that's not the case with new users, a centralised discussion hub would be a great way to "suck them in", to make them a part of the wiki too.
   • Something else I'm strongly considering is a "Request for Comments" page. Basically a community log where we could bring up topics that we want more user feedback on; sort of like the Community portal page, but for smaller issues. If a discussion in the community log grows enough, then it can easily be included in the Community portal as well. The log would basically be a short overview of the discussion, linking to wherever on the wiki it's actually taking place. This way anyone can just take a look at it and know what's being discussed on the wiki, and know that their opinion is welcomed there, if they feel like discussing that issue. Examples:
     • "Biro and I can't decide whether the header paragraphs for these pages should be justified or left-aligned. If anyone feels like chipping in, please do before we start clawing each other's eyes out. <link>"
     • "Two more days till Hard mode, how are we going to structure the pages for that? <link>."
     • "Do we want untyped skills directly under Category:Skills by type, or are we going to put them into some kind of new subcategory? <link>."

I do realise that this change in priorities would probably slow down the speed with which things get done around here, at least at first. It's very true that it takes more time to teach someone how to do something and wait for him to do it while still following him making sure he didn't mess up, compared to just doing it yourself, I can't argue with that. But I think we should look at this as an investment for the wiki. The more the community grows, the more new users we are able to help become part of this collective, the easier and more efficient everything will get in the future.

At least that's how I feel about this, that we should make an active effort to help newcomers become contributors instead of simply remaining readers of the wiki. What do you guys think? Maybe we should just keep going about doing whatever we do here on the wiki, and let them figure it out for themselves? Not sure. =\ --Dirigible 01:30, 19 April 2007 (EDT)

=) --Rezyk 01:40, 19 April 2007 (EDT)

Now that NPC formatting is formalised (except for hard mode), monster / NPC articles could be a project. It's going to need a lot of work once Hard Mode comes out. -- Gordon Ecker 01:57, 19 April 2007 (EDT)

Hehe, apparently you beat me to it by a month, Rezyk! Special:Whatlinkshere/Guild Wars Wiki:Requests for comment = nothing, though. Mmmm, we'll need to remedy that. :)

And agreed, Gordon, NPCs would be a great project if we can structure it so that even casual and new editors can help (i.e. divide the work in small chunks, and have copy/pasteable example pages where the editors can just fill in the data). --Dirigible

Until today I did not take many looks on GWW:PROJECT or GWW:CP. Only one real todo task until now, and that one was finished before... and the actual projects look huge - so I don't know what "little" task I could complete to help there. Perhaps, as Dirigible states above, the projects should contain small chunks of work to do. I did some little tasks such as applying the item formatting on rare and common materials. There is still work to be done with adding which armors use which materials. Could be another little todo-task.

I see two more Projekts: "Salvage Informations" and "Drop research". Gathering Salvage informations for weapons and items. Collecting drop research data for any item. These would be projects of long-running manner - everybody can help here while playing (that is actually the way I do it).

Request for Comments is very good - I remember we wanted some more comments on Item formatting (see Guild Wars Wiki talk:Formatting/Items#Proposal for our two-person-conversation ;) Actually there is another two-person-talk about new Guild Wars Wiki talk:Formatting/Items#Version_2, and no reaction on my synchronize request on weapon page as weapons are also items and so that location/acquisition-section should be named equally and the salvage section should be in both article types (if salvage section will be included). - MSorglos 03:56, 19 April 2007 (EDT)

Where should the Guild Wars Wiki:Requests for comment link be placed? GWW:CP? -- ab.er.rant 06:38, 19 April 2007 (EDT)

Aye, it would fit GWW:CP. Or maybe we can just add it to {{GWW navbar header}} as well? Not sure. --Dirigible 03:37, 20 April 2007 (EDT)

Ok, before I can start getting ppl to use these community pages, we need to define and restructure the existing ones. First, I'm confused as to what should go onto the GWW:CP. Right now, it appears to be some sort of bulletin board for recent events of note. If so, then GWW:RFC can simply be merged into the CP as a new section. I think it's easier to have a single page for a single purpose.

So the CP can be defined as a bulletin board. For GWW:PROJECT, I believe it's fine the way it is - to put up a list of projects and a list of easy/quick/simple to-dos. I'm also thinking that the policy discussion section on the CP should be moved to the GWW:POLICY page, so that it's sole concern is policy related activities. My 2 cents. -- ab.er.rant 05:14, 20 April 2007 (EDT)

A while ago Stabber started the discussion article, and it was eventually removed. I think that the RFC article serves a very similar purpose; trying to draw people's attention to ongoing discussions. I personally think discussion is a more succinct name, and I think it's a shame that the discussion article was removed, since it had a lot of potential.

While I realise the ball is already rolling on the RFC article I still want to float the idea that we restructure Guild Wars Wiki:Discussion instead. LordBiro 05:26, 20 April 2007 (EDT)

In fact, I suppose I do agree with Aberrant; the discussion article was redirected to CP for a reason, and since RFC serves a similar purpose then maybe, if we do want to get attention for a discussion, we should just post on CP? LordBiro 05:28, 20 April 2007 (EDT)

I'd rather keep the CP and RFC pages separate, to be honest. The way I see it, the community portal should be there to list major discussions that are already taking place on the wiki, while RFCs are a way to try directing enough people to a particular topic to actually have a discussion. CP is "These are the major discussions happening on the wiki right now", sort of like a newspaper's headlines, while RFC is "Can we get some input on this particular issue? We're having trouble reaching a consensus/we're too few to reach a consensus/we're unable to find a solution". Basically, the Community Portal should blink in watchlists a few times a week at most, while the RFC page should be updated much more often. I personally see them as very different from each other. --Dirigible 05:56, 20 April 2007 (EDT)

One more example to try and clarify it:

CP: "A new elections policy has been proposed, which may be controversial and will be used to decide on the future bureaucrats on the wiki." Major issue, and the goal is to inform the reader, since this is something that will affect the entire wiki/community.

RFC: "Does anyone mind if I change the disambiguation templates to {{Location disambiguation}} instead?" Minor issue, and the goal is to get some input about a certain issue. Simply a form of barn raising--Dirigible 06:06, 20 April 2007 (EDT)

I see. In that case, then I think the RFC page should go into the nav bar as well. -- ab.er.rant 21:52, 21 April 2007 (EDT)

I don't understand why the article is called Request for Comments and the link is called "discussions"...... LordBiro 05:50, 23 April 2007 (EDT)

"Comments" sounded not sufficiently descriptive, and "Requests for Comments" seemed too long for the navbar. If you disagree, go ahead and change it, I'm not going to make a fuss about it. Maybe we should just move Requests for comments into GWW:Discussion, as you suggested above? Your call. --Dirigible 05:55, 23 April 2007 (EDT)

Yeah, I wasn't really complaining that the link was wrong, rather that, if we are going to officially refer to this new article as "discussion" then why isn't it called that? LordBiro 07:35, 23 April 2007 (EDT)

Out-of-game, community-created content entries

If any of this is already mentioned in existing policy, feel free to inform me.

The 'precedents' for this discussion come from two things:

1. The guild entries policy for the GW Wiki
2. The Scribe page which does not exist now but will probably exist in the future.

The idea concerns entries for community-created content. We've already seen that not all wiki content is in-game content - the Scribe is one such example. The idea is to allow (or explicitly disallow) entries for things like forums (Guild-Hall, Guildwarsguru, etc.), community-created 'features' (Healbot Blues, for example). These items don't really have much to do with anything in game, but like parts of the scribe, concern the community only. The old wiki categorically disallowed entries of this type, however, the guild policy shows that it's possible to expand the current wiki.

Obviously the policy in this case becomes fairly important, but some of it can be purposefully vague. There doesn't need to be any restrictions on how 'well-known' or popular an item has to be for it to have an entry. Likewise, 'advertising' can be curtailed by limiting the namespace linking to within itself. In fact, much of the policy is similar - the points about defamation, impossible to verify achievements, acceptable formatting, etc. etc.

Discuss! --Rust 15:49, 25 April 2007 (EDT)

1. Guilds are very much part of the game; you really can't say it's "out-of-game" content if my guild's roster comes up when I hit the G button. 2. The Scribe is content created/released by ANet, not the community. You can't really equal either of the two with what you're suggesting, articles about other fansites. I'm not disagreeing (nor agreeing) with your suggestion (yet), but that point stood out.

What content are you thinking about, exactly? A two liner explaining what GWG/guru might mean if someone hears those terms in-game? A paragraph describing the content of each of those sites? A multi-page essay on the psychological characteristics of the moderators of those sites? What content would you put in these pages? --Dirigible 16:12, 25 April 2007 (EDT)

The content I'm thinking about is something on the order of the Guild entries - when created, links, maybe an image, credits as to who works on it, and then maybe some broad trivia relating to common themes, or attitudes espoused on that site or throughout that feature. For Guild-Hall, it might be mentioned (or might not be, depending on how moderators see it) that the community is pvp-centric, or whatever. What I'm not looking for is an acronym entry explaining that GWG is Guildwarsguru.com with a link.

I'm not saying guild entries are out of game - what I'm saying in fact is that guild entries are player/community-created. This is what I consider half of the equation. The other half is "The Scribe" content, while official, is not really in game related in a lot of the aspects. My reasons for including them as 'precedents' is so that when those points are taken in tandem you get what I'm asking about - community-created, unofficial, out-of-game relevant entries that are related to Guild Wars.

Somewhat related to this are entries on in-game events that are player organized. The Mursaat Rally comes to mind, but wiki seems like a nice place to document what happened, although certain degrees should probably be considered. --Rust 16:28, 25 April 2007 (EDT)

Alright, here it goes: I personally find the idea appealing and see value in having those pages here on the wiki. Back when pushing for guild pages, I used a few times the argument that the GuildWarsWiki is the first and only official community for GuildWars players, so it shouldn't be such a foreign idea to have content about the community; I think the same would be applicable here. While waiting for the thoughts of those who disagree, lets play around with a couple of questions which will inevitably be raised.

Would there be a notability-requirement? Would someone's Geocities page about his GW chars count as a fansite and documented here? How about guild forums? Where would we draw the line (if a line is to be drawn at all)? Maybe only those listed on guildwars.com? More? Less?

This is probably going to be the main problem with this proposal: risking offending these sites could be a Bad Thing. I know for a fact that a few of them used to treat even (good ol' harmless) GuildWiki as a direct rival; imagine adding on top of that the words "official" and "community-focused content". Not everyone is quite enthusiastic about this place yet and I think avoiding creating bad blood between us and any fansite should be a very high priority. Whether we would be able to walk that thin line between being accurate and truthful and avoiding offending anyone's sensibilities is an issue which should be discussed. --Dirigible 17:45, 25 April 2007 (EDT)

I personally do not find this appealing. I see problems. As Dirigible mentioned, where do we draw the line? If you're talking about pages for external sites ala the guild pages, then I see several potential problems. For guilds, misrepresentation and inaccuracy, even outright vandalism affects only a relatively small number of people. If a page on an external fansite is misrepresented (like your pvp-centric claim example), we're potentially depriving that fansite of a lot of potential traffic. If I don't care about pvp, and see that a particular site is described as pvp-centric, I won't even bother clicking.

Would a simple list of fansites not be enough? A listing similar to guildwars.com is fine IMHO. Just a simple listing of external sites, grouped by primary language, and a simple mention of what content they have, like forums, knowledge base, galleries, guides, services, trading, humor, blog etc.

In short, I'm against any form of external site description or review. Having a page of links to fansites ala guildwars.com is fine. Explaining/describing/categorising their focus/style/community/quality is not. NPOV. -- ab.er.rant 22:26, 25 April 2007 (EDT)

I'm not sure you're describing the same line as Dirigible. The content line - what is acceptable in the entries, what is not - is much better-defined in comparison to the line I think Dirigible is describing - the line of how many sites even warrant an entry. The reason for this is that - and you mention NPOV - NPOV is NPOV. It has nothing to do with the use of subjective terms. Take a look at wikipedia entries - to use an example, the Slashdot article contains this line: "While Slashdot's haphazard editorial style produced a unique voice in the pre-blog age, users frequently post criticisms of perceived arbitrary or biased editorial choices." Is that NPOV with subjective terms, or is it biased? I argue that it's the former. Keeping the NPOV guideline solves all the problems of misrepresentation. You can characterize their focus, their style, their community and to a lesser degree their quality (Team Quitter forums come to mind) while keeping NPOV, and while using subjective terms like 'popular sell forums' or 'large HA player base'.

A listing of fansites, in comparison, is a very narrow source of information - if I am looking for forums that allow guild recruitment, for example, that offers me nothing. I am resigned to clicking on every link in order to find what I want - much like the official GW site. Unlike the GW.com, however, the wiki is inherently community driven.

As for 'depriving' the fansite of traffic - I don't understand how this is relevant in the slightest. If they're misrepresented grossly, then I can see how it hurts, but this applies for everything wiki. The wiki is basically trusting in its users to play nice, and represent what they edit properly, and if that's not the case, trusting in its users to change it so that it does represent them properly. Even with the listing of fansites, the same gross misrepresentation can occur. If I categorize GWG as (humor, forums) next to its link - what then? Gross misrepresentation isn't unique to community sites, and will be dealt with like everything else in the wiki - having it changed back by users that care.

I have to mention, the biggest problem I have with the 'vandalism' type criticism is something that seems to surface repeatedly in policy discussions. It seems like the consensus from the wiki community is that 'people are idiots, they'll break everything on the wiki, so better to not include it so they can't break it'. In looking over the guild policy discussions this is a vein of thought that appears almost throughout - but the result of all this speculation is basically nothing. Guild pages are fine now.

As for a notability requirement - although it would be nice to have some sort of flexible requirement, I think ultimately in the end it doesn't matter if the policy is structured like the guild pages policy. If I have a geocities page, who's going to search for that on wiki? The other reason for avoiding the requirement is because some sites (GWG, for example) host GW-related comics that may or maybe not warrant their own entry. However, these comics obviously don't have links on the community page. Even if you argue that those comics don't deserve an entry, the notability requirement requires any new site to basically register themselves through gw.com itself. What that boils down to is ArenaNet restricting the size of the community.

I suspect that the problem you talk about, Dirigible, is that most of these pages will end up looking like advertising for the sites they're about if the policy is too stringent, or create bad blood if the content policy is too loose. I think the only policy that matters is that it's true, written from a NPOV. What's the worst that could happen? (Sorry if my edit was a bit rambling - early in the morning + thinking about policy = @_@) --Rust 10:37, 26 April 2007 (EDT)

Two things that may be relevant here: Proposed policy Guild Wars Wiki:Article retention, and the discussion at Talk:Fansite (that discussion stalled out, but could be re-started). ArenaNet has already established their own criteria for notability - and only lists those fansites that reach that level. I see no reason to create our own criteria - if a site exists on the the ArenaNet listing of fansites, then it has reached a documentable level of notability - if it's not on that list, no need to document it. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 10:45, 26 April 2007 (EDT)

The fansite discussion is exactly what I was looking for. It seems like actually there's a good consensus on that page about what to do. However, I feel that in light of the guild policy, that the fansite discussion should reflect that. What I'm advocating is actually option 4:

Allow articles on any fansites, officially recognized or not.

...for the same reasons that any guild page can be put up. Users homepages that they try to classify as fansites - who cares? They're only searchable, not linkable. But it's actually a bit more than option 4 - fansites sure, should have their own entries, but there are certain 'features' hosted on existing fansites that may or may not deserve mention. Now, this might be the slippery slope - but if Healbot Blues were hosted on GWG or GWO, for example, would it then warrant an entry? But I digress, one thing at a time. --Rust 11:31, 26 April 2007 (EDT)

An example of what I am envisioning, from a personal standpoint, and in terms of content: Page (Err)Seven

Comments would be appreciated. --Rust 16:37, 26 April 2007 (EDT)

I concur with your reasoning of NPOV. As for your example, I see it as essentially a form of advertising. One of the arguments for guild pages was that is serves to document the guilds that are in the game, and a place for recruitment. The fansites, one can argue, are not what the game is about. They are other sites/periodicals/pages/forums that are about the game, but not of the game. I see the wiki's purpose as being to document things about the game itself, not the communities that revolve around the game. But I don't feel too strongly about this either way. I just think that there are more important things to consider and focus on right now. -- ab.er.rant 01:49, 27 April 2007 (EDT)

Yes, while I'm happy to be less strict than GuildWiki in this regard, I think that documented sites should be notable, and I agree that for the most part ArenaNet have already made a list of those fansites that are notable. LordBiro 04:14, 27 April 2007 (EDT)

This is the crux of the issue I think, and something that's fairly important for the wiki to decide. Is GW Wiki:

1. a wiki concerning only the things inside the game
2. a wiki concerning all things designated OK by ArenaNet
3. a wiki concerning all things about the game

I think at this point, we're actually at 2. We've been talking about adopting a policy for fansites, but only for ones marked as notable for ArenaNet. The Scribe is something that provides news about stuff in game, but is very different in nature from the rest of the stuff on wiki or even on the official site. It's included, basically, because it's on the official site. The precedent for including things 'outside the game, about the game' is there. The Gwp entry is something that's even been ok-ed by wiki so far, while being unofficial and just 'about the game'.

Now if it's consistently 'a wiki concerning all things designated OK by ArenaNet', then I believe I reached a bit of a problem. Forgive me if this comes off as sounding bitter, but what then is the point of the wiki? You have an 'official community site' where everything has to be vetted by ArenaNet before inclusion - basically like everything on their official site! I fail to see how this grows the community in the slightest. What we have here is an outsourcing of documentation 'job' by ArenaNet onto its community. As a community-driven site, the scope of the site should also be driven by the community, not babysat by ArenaNet and its community relations department. The advantage of having the 'official' backing is twofold - uniting the community so that there aren't these pointless divisions (GWiki and GWOWiki, for example), and the freedom to document a large portion of the community because there are no physical restrictions (bandwidth, server space). But if it's just going to document the same things that have been documented for 2 years on assorted fansites, then it's a very mediocre use of resources indeed.

As for it looking like 'advertising' - I pretty much disagree completely. It's no more advertising than the 'Adobe Photoshop' entry is on Wikipedia. Nor is it any more advertising than Guild Recruitment. Unlinkable, only-searchable 'advertising' has it's limits. --Rust 09:33, 27 April 2007 (EDT)

This is not 'a wiki concerning all things designated OK by ArenaNet', it just so happens that ArenaNet have produced a pretty good list of notable fansites. I don't think we should be allowing all and any fansite to have its own article. I personally think only those fansites that provide some benefit to our readership should be accepted, and if this requires a notability policy then I would gladly support one.

I find your argument that we are being 'babysat' by AreneNet quite offensive to ArenaNet, since they have very generously given us a free reign to do pretty much what we think is best. The fact that we don't all agree that your example fansite should have an article is not a sign that ArenaNet are in control, rather it's a sign that the we, the rest of the community, are yet to be persuaded that the subject of your article is noteworthy. LordBiro 09:52, 27 April 2007 (EDT)

The problem does not lie with the approval/disapproval of my article at all. The problem lies with the decision of 'what is noteworthy' at all. In this discussion, and in prior policy discussions, it's been pegged directly to what ArenaNet deems as ok. If that's not being babysat, I don't know what is. They may not have volunteered to do so, but in looking to the official site for everything for guidance, that's what the end result is. I remember early discussions on Guild Pages arguing that guild pages should be only GotWs and sites noted on the notable guilds page. Was that a pretty good list? Yes, just like the fansites page. A pretty good list - is it complete? No. Will it ever be complete? Probably not. What are we to do with those that fall through the cracks? This is what this discussion is about.

It's off topic, but as for feeling that ArenaNet is being generous, it's a two-way street. We have free reign to do what is best, but we are actually maintaining a very clean community for them. They aren't giving us free reign to do whatever we want at all. We are actually writing a lot of the documentation and saving ArenaNet a lot of the hassle of creating web pages to document everything, and reduce a lot of the repetition for Gaile or the CR crew in answering questions.

And lastly, as for 'the rest of the community' making decisions on the wiki, you and I both know that isn't true. The number of people that are interested in commenting in policy discussions is miniscule. The number of people that actually comment on policy discussions, even smaller. I find it rather amusing that any of us would pretend that we're speaking on behalf of the community as a whole. It's for that reason that I'm advocating a broad stance on this issue - better we represent all the minor communities than represent only the majority. --Rust 10:05, 27 April 2007 (EDT)

It's old news that an exceedingly small number of people participate in policy discussion. However, nobody is pretending that they speak for "the community as a whole;" we're speaking for ourselves, just as you are speaking for yourself. I would like to disagree with you on one point; "better we represent all the minor communities than represent only the majority." That's a load of tosh. It's better to represent the majority, because, by definition, they are the biggest source of visitors/contributors, and crafting policy that goes against what they like/want will chase them away. And, because these policies of yours would be crafted for "the minor communities," the number of people leaving would be greater than the number of people coming in. Lose-lose situation. -AuronMy Talk 10:32, 27 April 2007 (EDT)

There is a disconnect in logic here for me. I don't see how including an entry about Weapon of Choice radio is going to make people leave. --Rust 11:16, 27 April 2007 (EDT)

Some of the arguments against guild pages (and build pages) are sort of a continuation from what used to be discussed on GuildWiki. A lot of them are influenced by what went on in GuildWiki. But in the end, the supporters got through after much debate and compromise. Writing comments that's bordering on insinuations isn't going to help. -- ab.er.rant 21:57, 27 April 2007 (EDT)

Healbot is one of the most popular GW webcomics out there, and if its being denied a page because ANet doesn't classify it as an official fansite (it isn't a fansite!), that just sucks. — Skuld 10:21, 27 April 2007 (EDT)

Healbot Blues, although I didn't know it at the time, is actually on the official list of fansites. --Rust 10:23, 27 April 2007 (EDT)

You are right, I did not mean to imply that I represent the community (although I should because I'm awesome ;) ) rather I meant to point out that those involved in the discussion so far have not generally seemed to agree with your proposal that we should have no notability requirements for fansite articles.

I don't think the amount of work ArenaNet have to do has been reduced by the introduction of the wiki; Emily and Gaile have volunteered a great deal of time to the project, and maintaining an additional site (one requiring a huge amount of resources as well) is costly. I agree that it is a two way street, as you put it, but they have basically just said "here is a server, do what you want". While you can argue that they are receiving a benefit from having this wiki, I'd like to know what you think that benefit is. It's almost certainly not financial, I don't know how much having an official wiki fosters good community relations, and I certainly don't think it has reduced anyone at ArenaNet's workload. This probably isn't the place to discuss this, though ;)

I can understand your concern that we are mirroring ArenaNet's list of fansites. I certainly don't want to be in a situation where our content is just a mirror of that produced by ArenaNet. Therefore I think it's only fair that we produce our own criteria for determining which fansites are notable. The purpose of the wiki is to be a resource for players, providing information about the game that would be useful to them while they play. I would suggest, then, that our criteria for including fansites would be to document those fansites that provide a useful resource to players. LordBiro 10:47, 27 April 2007 (EDT)

Hmm, "useful"?

1. Forums (GWG, TGH, GWO)

2. Chat (GWG, gwp, GWO)

3. Comics (Healbot Blues, TheGearTrick, GuildWarsSeries, Photics)

4. Miscellaneous (Page(err)7 columns, StarNews23 machinima videos, GuildCast podcasts, the Weapon of Choice GW radio shows)

I guess "useful" would cover 1 + 2? How about 3 and 4? Several of them are also mentioned on gw.com, and then there's others like WoC which even though it hasn't been featured on gw.com still has had ANet staff (Izzy specifically) on the microphone in several occasions, talking about skill balance and whatnot? I'm not sure I'm comfortable with "useful". --Dirigible 11:05, 27 April 2007 (EDT)

Basically, I'm looking for a criteria of notability that can be translated to "of interest to the GuildWars community". Maybe something along the lines of Wikipedia's criteria of notability: "A topic is notable if it has been the subject of non-trivial coverage in multiple reliable secondary sources that are independent of the subject"? (Just throwing ideas out here, I'm not sure if this would really work or not). --Dirigible 11:12, 27 April 2007 (EDT)

I agree that we should (at least) list all of the useful forums(/fansites), and maybe give a little info about each one. Maybe not a full page, but at least a paragraph to let people decide if it's their cup of tea. The bigger ones, of course, will require a little more than 1 paragraph to sum up (GWGuru comes to mind, what with forums on every topic under the sun, auctions/marketwatch, etc), but QQ forums can be pretty easily summed up in a paragraph. -AuronMy Talk 11:21, 27 April 2007 (EDT)

Which is why I suggested just a list of websites rather than having one page for each such website. If I were looking for some other fansite, I'd rather see a summary listing of all the popular/useful/notable ones and quickly pick a couple from a short description of what they provide. -- ab.er.rant 21:57, 27 April 2007 (EDT)

My take on this is that we shouldn't clutter the site with articles about all the personal fan material that users create. If users want to link to that sort of thing from their user page, no problem - but no need to link from the article space. There needs to be a threshold for inclusion. For the sake of simplicity, I fully support using the ArenaNet criteria. This has zero to do with bending to their will on our content - this has to do with a simple and verifiable means to define notability. If we want to define our own threshold for notability, we can work on creating some - but I find using a pre-established list to be by far the simplest method. For alternate definitions, the Wikipedia model actually fails - by that model no fansite would be listed (which is why no Guild Wars fansite has an article on Wikipedia).

As to content of what we include - I think it's simplest to just create the articles as redirects to the fansite article. From there, we can create our own table listing the sites, expanding on the source list with additional information. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 22:08, 27 April 2007 (EDT)

Will there be guide lines implemented for allowance of "Guild" user pages? If already done, Where can I find the guidelines to creating such a page for my guild. ElementGaming - 03:13, 29 April 2007 (EDT)

Guild Wars Wiki:Guild pages. -AuronMy Talk 03:21, 29 April 2007 (EDT)

I feel like we're deviating from the topic a bit, not to mention that it's difficult to follow at this point.

Issue: Documenting fansites, fan articles, fan-created content: yay or nay?

It seems like the consensus is 'yay, but only sites marked as notable by ArenaNet and only short blurbs'. My stance is that this is inadequate - there's no reason to not have more.

Why we should have more:

1. There is a lot of 'notable' content never acknowledged by ArenaNet and the official site, for whatever reason. It could be that the site or the content doesn't meet 'The Expectations' set forth for the fansite program. It might well be that it's not a fansite at all, but merely a feature for another site. Examples of this include: StarNews23, Weapon of Choice, GWP, etc. A lot of sites just don't care to apply to the fansite program - they might dislike the rules and restrictions, it might not be important to them, etc. The point is that the community DOES care about these sites, even if they don't care about ArenaNet.
2. For the most part, these items not included in the fansite program represent minority communities in Guild Wars. Team-iQ.net, teamquitter.com, and GWP probably represent a large part of the higher-tier PvP population, a population that goes almost completely unrepresented on all other fansites. There's no good reason to not include these minority populations - doing so will not cause the wiki to lose traffic, for example.
3. Each site deserves more than just a line explaining what it has - that isn't to say that there shouldn't be a fansite listing page, but that each site has the potential to have more information explaining the unique quirks about that site. Certain sites simply have peculiar or different attitudes and the wiki is a good place that can go into a little detail about that. (For example, wikipedia's 4chan article has this line "The humor of /b/'s many residents (also known as "/b/tards"[5] ) has spawned enough intricate and hard-to-follow inside jokes that most newcomers find many posts incomprehensible.", something that might be appropriate for many sites. It's NPOV.)
4. The Guild Wars Wiki is the one and only official community website for Guild Wars. To not have this serve as a portal to all parts of the community would be a waste. For those arguing that this wiki is about the game, not about the game and the community, I'd like to know when that criteria was set and why.
5. We have the space and the resources.

I would appreciate it if someone filled in the 'Why we shouldn't have more' for me. Thanks. --Rust 10:43, 30 April 2007 (EDT)

I'm tending to agreee we should have more... But I really need to digest the ^above arguments again. Fox (talk|contribs) 11:00, 30 April 2007 (EDT)

On the subjects you mentioned:

Re: Fansites - as I said before "There needs to be a threshold for inclusion. For the sake of simplicity, I fully support using the ArenaNet criteria. This has zero to do with bending to their will on our content - this has to do with a simple and verifiable means to define notability. If we want to define our own threshold for notability, we can work on creating some - but I find using a pre-established list to be by far the simplest method." I still stand by that statement.

Re: content of those we do list - more than just a line or two (or just a listing in a table) is nothing more than advertising for the sites.

Re: the concept that we should be a central portal - this site was created for the purpose of documenting the game. Only notable content should be included - and to be notable, there needs to be criteria to define notability in the case of fansites.

If you can define a workable definition of notability that expands on the available list from the official fansite list, feel free to propose one - but openning the door with no criteria is irresponsible and simply allows vanity pages / advertisements for every un-notable and vaguely GW related site in existance. I'm not saying that we shouldn't allow more sites - but I strongly believe that some measure or criteria of notability that can be confirmed must be defined before allowing more than just the official list. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 11:19, 30 April 2007 (EDT)

Why is this idea of advertising such a big deal? We opened this 'irresponsible' door with the Guild pages. There's nothing stopping me from creating the Page Err Seven guild and liinking my website along with website information etc. in the Guild pages section. The real beauty of the Guild Pages is a big fat "So what?" Even if I do that, I'm advertising to an audience of basically no one. These pages can't be linked to from out of the namespace, it's not like I get a link on the front page.

There simply is no criteria for notability that will include all these PvP sites. They don't advertise, they don't care if they are characterized as notable, they just ARE notable. This is how notability works in real life too - you don't toot your own horn to become notable, you just become notable when you are notable.

"the concept that we should be a central portal - this site was created for the purpose of documenting the game." - This is exactly what I want explained to me. When was this decided on, the decision to document just the game and not the community? Was it decided at all? Or is it a holdover from the GWiki days? --Rust 11:39, 30 April 2007 (EDT)

I don't think that advertising is a very strong argument against listing fansites; as Rust said above, "Unlinkable, only-searchable 'advertising' has it's limits."

However, I do think that if we are going to list fansites there needs to be some criteria. We should not be a directory for every fansite that there might be.

Whether this wiki should be a game-only reference or not is not an easy question to answer. I inferred from my discussion with Mike O'Brien that creating a game-only reference was his intention, but I doubt that he had details, such as fansites, in mind at the time. It would not be difficult to ask him about this, but I guess this would not satisfy you.

Asking whether this is "a holdover from the GWiki days" is a strange question; ArenaNet approached the GuildWiki admins because they were impressed by the GuildWiki. There were a few things that both ArenaNet and the admins wanted to improve upon with the official wiki, but for the most part the entire wiki is "a holdover from the GWiki days"; because the GuildWiki is pretty good. LordBiro 12:39, 30 April 2007 (EDT)

I didn't mean to imply that GuildWiki was in any way bad - however, GuildWiki had some unique limitations just because it didn't have the support that the current wiki does. It's perfectly understandable for GuildWiki to be somewhat narrow in its objective because Gravewit didn't have unlimited resources for it. I'm just wondering if some of the policies and viewpoints used in GWWiki haven't been reassessed to reflect these greater resources and the extra support.

In the meanwhile, I've been trying to come up with a criteria for inclusion. And I'm having a ton of trouble with it. I'm assuming that these pages have to be somehow mentioned from a neutral party, or something of that nature, but none of this can be vetted, and also, the idea is somewhat ludicrous - asking the community to link to other sites in the community. With the community being 'anyone', the criteria might as well not even be there. I'm still not convinced that having a criteria is necessary (much like guild pages, which I keep drawing a parallel to), but I will try and work towards one. --Rust 13:00, 30 April 2007 (EDT)

The way I see it, whatever we decide, we need to do so while thinking about this wiki. If the end result happens to be the same as GuildWiki, so be it, as long as we arrive at that conclusion after taking in consideration the current context. The GWW is an official wiki, which also happens to be the only official community that this game has. Does this give us any kind of extra responsibilities or privileges that all other non-official fansites don't have?

For the guild pages, at first the argument was that the guild pages document the community, but then we smacked it around a bit until it fit the "guilds are part of the game" idea, thus avoiding having to answer whether this wiki is documenting only the game or even the community. Maybe it's time we revisit that issue. (And yes, my personal opinion is that we should in fact document even the community).

As for determining the criteria by which these pages will be measured (which may or may not be a notability one), maybe it's better to try a more practical approach? Lets decide what we want to have and what we don't want to have first, then we can try and formulate the prose that would allow such content to remain while excluding everything else. --Dirigible 13:25, 30 April 2007 (EDT)

As I said earlier - "I strongly believe that some measure or criteria of notability that can be confirmed must be defined before allowing more than just the official list." How we go about coming up with that definition doesn't matter. I've seen a lot of websites that are little more than guild homepages with a talk forum, or worse that are nothing more than an expanded user page with personal builds on it. Openning the door with no criteria allows articles to be created for these sites as well, which are the primary entries I would rather avoid. This sort of content belongs on user pages, linking from those. If criteria can be made to add to the current fansite list without including these types, I would give serious consideration to supporting it. Even wikipedia has a criteria - and again, the use notability as their guideline - although, by their definition of notability, there are no notable Guild Wars fansites so none have articles - so I suggest against using their method of defining the criteria.

On other related issues: If we use the official list, then I see no problem using the existing namespace. If we expand on that significantly, then I support putting it in its own namespace - for much the same reasons as was done for guilds - segregate it out for those who don't want to mess with it, and consolidate it should it be decided to remove or rework it later.

Also, before putting anything in place, I would like to see content guideline pages created. This should exist regardless of if we use the official list or an expanded list. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 16:18, 30 April 2007 (EDT)

Well I feel I just might want to jump in on this conversation considering the good people in IRC who sparked a discussion with me on this. I certainly don't want to step on any toes and I know that I'm not going to do a very good job explaining all my reasons so I'll try to be short and to the point. I don't feel that the purpose exists for specific fansite pages on this Wiki. As a Site Manager for Guildwarsguru.com, I don't feel comfortable with having any possibility of vandalism, misleading comments, general opinions or someone's whim applied to such an open source as an official wiki with a page about my fansite. I know the comments that are out there. I know exactly what light Guru is seen in from all sides of the community. :) It doesn't bother me, except if that information is going to be posted in any type of official Anet page then I have a problem. There's also then the question of policies as several brought up to me that the pages can be locked, there can be no talk pages, etc. I would never want to be seen in the light as requesting preferential treatment. So, I do not want GuildWarsGuru.com to have a dedicated page on the Wiki. I am happy and feel comfortable with the link that is currently here under the http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Fansite. --Inde

It was prophecised by many who disagreed with the Guilds section that they too would be full of vandalism and libel, it didn't happen. So why would something like that happen with fansite pages? Vandalism would be shot on sight like on any other page of the wiki. "Misleading comments" and opinions would also dealt with like any other page of the wiki, discussed on the talk page and removed or corrected if the consensus is that they're indeed misleading. Keeping a neutral point of view would remain a top priority, like on any other page of the wiki. So what exactly is the problem here, if I may ask? --Dirigible 23:20, 30 April 2007 (EDT)

I too have experience with the community. I thought it might be beneficial for a fansite operator to weigh in on this debate since it's affect would be felt by those of us who are maintaining and operating these fansites. I understand that you might consider something a neutral viewpoint, but who is dictating and establishing what someone would consider neutral? As just an example, it's extremely harmful for any fansite to be categorized, filed and put away as a PvP, PvE, or any other such title attached to it. Even if the site is clearly focused on a type of community, to never be able to change that viewpoint and to have the reputation persist because of something that would be considered "official" put on these ArenaNet pages is just not something I feel comfortable with. Waiting for a consensus on what might be misleading.. items of discussion take a long time to happen and be worked out on a Wiki. I understand and would welcome other fansite owners/operators to voice if they would like their own page on the wiki. I'm sure many will feel differently then myself. Again, I am happy with the link to the site that exists with a redirect to GuildWars.com. --Inde

Ah, gotcha. So the issue isn't that there may be temporary mistakes or graffiti, but that accurate information may unfortunately also find their way into these articles.

I'd be lying if I said that I don't personally very much dislike that kind of strict control over information, especially true information. But I'd also be lying if I said I don't understand where you're coming from; your best interests coincide with Guru's best interests, and Guru's best interests aren't necessarily the same as the wiki's. Fair enough, I guess, especially considering that, as shown by the mountain of discussion above, we're not even sure what exactly the wiki's best interests are yet, whether they are the same as ANet's or the community's. If Guru wants out, so be it. The guild pages policy already has such a clause, "In general, guild pages should not be kept if the guild leader or all editing guild members request deletion (although verification of current membership/position may be required, to prevent abuse)". I think something similar would be appropriate for a policy on fansite pages as well. --Dirigible 01:23, 1 May 2007 (EDT)

All right, while the tone isn't exactly positive, yes you have hit it on the head Dirigible. ;) It's certainly a fair assessment. All fansites are, at any point in time, trying to overcome, improve, update, expand and change their site. Trying to define and back that site into a corner through a main or talk page could really limit and hinder that effort. As an example, I'm sure most are painfully aware how slow Guru can be with page timeouts and database errors (just nod your head), but if we were looking for completely factual information this couldn't be disputed if it were put on our main page here on the Wiki or a talk page. Not something I can control and am particularly frustrated by, but this type of information isn't something I'd like advertised on what is considering an Official site as it's a continual ongoing effort to fix and resolve. I wasn't aware of the guild pages policy that you mentioned but I think with this in place it would certainly alleviate any concerns that I have and is fair, so thanks for your time and help in clearing that up for me. --Inde

I think that every fansite in the official fansite roster and every guild in guild of the week should be listed. If we get a request from the fansite or guild in question, we can replace the article's contents with the "guild description" section of the guild's GotW article or the fansite's one line description on the fansite raster then lock the article. I'm okay with deleting the articles for other guilds and fansites that request it. -- Gordon Ecker 02:55, 1 May 2007 (EDT)

@Rust, the resources of GuildWiki have never been a huge problem, and only became an issue during the Nightfall release, but our policy there has never been governed (or for the most part, even affected) by resource limitations. The builds section would probably never have been implemented if resources were scarce!

@Barek, I'm personally opposed to using a separate namespace. If we can't find a suitable criteria for inclusion, however complex or simple it might need to be, then I don't think we should list fansites. Having a namespace for every type of article, just because we can't say "no" is worrying.

@Everyone else so far, as I've made clear throughout this discussion I'm not necessarily a fan of having articles for every fansite that there is, however I do think that documenting some fansites would be useful. But reading the recent comments, I would strongly oppose any policy whereby fansite articles can either be protected as standard or where fansites can opt-out. If it is decided that the official wiki should document notable fansites then we should document them. I'm sure there are plenty of people who do not want a Wikipedia article about them, but that's not how an encyclopaedia works.

I don't mean to be rude here, Inde, but I'm sure you can understand my viewpoint! Articles do not exist for those who run or manage fansites, such as yourself, rather they exist for readers who want to find information on the subject. LordBiro 04:11, 1 May 2007 (EDT)

If we document fansites, an NPoV policy is essential. -- Gordon Ecker 21:46, 3 May 2007 (EDT)

Restart - re: fansites

I spent about an hour last night looking up the Kryta Bomber, trying to determine the sequence of his videos. It took longer than I expected because I, for some reason, imagined that there were four instead of three. (I wanted to watch them in sequence because I had heard that they got progressively better. As a side note, they were awesome.) Gem's fun page ended up being the best resource I could find.

I think that Healbot Blues and the Krytan Bomber fit the "community-created content" description, but I don't think forums themselves are not inherently content. GuildWarsGuru.com houses in-depth guides (with some overlap with the wikis), and I would also classify that as content, but discussion about the game does seem to me to be any more documentable than Fyren's Guildwiki talk page. (Would the talk page for Guru be a discussion of a description of a discussion?)

I am not extremely passionate about this topic, so I have not formulated a particularly convincing dissertation, but having a Main namespace version of the the Guild Wars-themed links on Gem's aforementioned subpage might have some value. (We could keep significance speculation under control in the same way that we do in the skill articles. For instance, see Holy Haste vs "You're All Alone!".) As to notability, I agree with Dirigible when he quotes, "A topic is notable if it has been the subject of non-trivial coverage in multiple reliable secondary sources that are independent of the subject." -- Dashface 23:10, 21 May 2007 (EDT)

Are you supporting it as a single page in the main namespace or are you supporting it as "a page for each community-created website or forum or media"? -- ab.er.rant 00:15, 22 May 2007 (EDT)

Separate entries might lend themselves to PoV comments because the articles would look otherwise sparse. What about something like Fan comics, Fan videos, Fan artwork, and maybe Forums? I suppose that unlike videos, fan artwork could provide links to Guild Wars art repositories rather than just a single piece. Merge comics and artwork? I also don't know how we'd order them on the page. Alphabetically? Ones listed on the official site followed by the rest alphabetically? -- Dashface 02:15, 22 May 2007 (EDT)

List of Fansites + (sub)headings. - BeX 03:15, 22 May 2007 (EDT)

Would it be different to ANet's listing? -- Dashface 08:06, 22 May 2007 (EDT)

It could (and should) include more descriptions. Btw, I agree with having one single page for this. If ever this page becomes huge, we can talk about splitting, but starting out with too many pages encourages unneeded PoV in the description. --Xeeron 10:04, 22 May 2007 (EDT)

Heh, I find it ironic that this topic received zero comments while it was listed in the "Current hot topics" section of the Community Portal page - but the discussion restarted within 24 hours of it being removed from that list.

But on subject; back on Talk:fansite I had originally listed the following options:

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.

I think this lists most of the options, but I would add a further variant of only listing those fansites that meet a specific criteria for inclusion as being an in-between for the all fansites vs the officially recognized list.

The problem with establishing a new criteria is figuring out how to work it. The concpet of "A topic is notable if it has been the subject of non-trivial coverage in multiple reliable secondary sources that are independent of the subject" would result in few if any fansite articles - almost assuredly fewer than are on the official list. Keep in mind that this is the same criteria used on Wikipedia, and not one Guild Wars fansite has met this criteria - the reason is simple; Guild Wars fansites simply are not mentioned in reliable secondary sources that are independant of Guild Wars or ArenaNet. If an alternate criteria is wanted, some wording better than that proposal is needed. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 11:18, 22 May 2007 (EDT)

How's this for a proposed criteria for inclusion?

• Any fansite listed in the official fansite list, news articles at guildwars.com, or entries in the Scribe.

- or -

• Any fansite listed in articles on two or more elite fansites (excluding their forums).

note: this could be expanded to Any fansite listed in articles on two or more elite or honored fansites (excluding their forums).

That should cover far more than just what's found on the official list, while excluding the majority of the pages with questionable notoriety. The only question then remaining is if to give each their own article, or to have them setup as redirects to a central listing article. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 11:52, 22 May 2007 (EDT)

Out of that list, I prefer option 2. --Xeeron 16:54, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

I like the idea of saying "if a fansite is linked to from two elite fansites then it is notable". I don't think we need to expand our criteria just yet. LordBiro 17:21, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

I've created a first draft of a policy proposal at Guild Wars Wiki:Fansites based on my option #2 above and using a specified criteria for notability. I also wanted to create a Guild Wars Wiki:Fansites/alternate based on my option #3 and using the same criteria of notability, but I don't have time for now to prepare the needed formatting guidelines that would be needed for such an article. I may be on later tonight and will try a draft of that one if time permits and no one gets to it before me. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 01:15, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

Note on templates

While looking to the welcome template, I noticed that several of the templates we have are not in Category:Templates or one of the subcategories. Since templates are not always intuitively named and their number keeps on growing, please try to categorize all templates you create/change, else it will soon become impossible to find useful templates whose name you forgot. --Xeeron 10:16, 22 May 2007 (EDT)

Relevant Policy/Formatting links on talk page

Now that the game links directly to articles, there's going to be a lot of new contributors that don't know about the formatting and policy pages. You guys think it would be a good idea to have links to them in article talk pages? Like all the guild talk pages have links to Guild Wars Wiki:Guild pages and Guild Wars Wiki:Formatting/Guilds at the top. Similar to how wikipedia puts project links in the talk pages (ex: w:Talk:Guild Wars. -Smurf 00:55, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Be bold. Do it. —Tanaric 01:12, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm hoping for more support before I go adding a template to almost every talk page. :) Smurf 03:08, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Would a bot be better suited for this? -- ab.er.rant 03:11, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

If someone would be willing to, yes. I'm just trying to get opinions about it first, see if anyone is against it. -Smurf 03:14, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Resetting indent and chiming in: great idea, would be very useful. Speaking of Guilds and the game linking directly to the site, one of it's neatest features is searching from directly in the game. I was thinking - Wouldn't it be great if I could search a guild tag (since that's all I can see on a player) and have it link to a relevant guild page? Any ideas on how to make guild tags help search? It's late, I'm tired, can't think of anything... Sonya Gladgul 15:36, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

In that case, you'd be interested in joining in here. -- ab.er.rant 15:38, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Should we have collapsible nav boxes on pages with large navigation tables?

Well? - File:Drago-sig.gif Drago 19:50, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

hmmm are there any outrageous examples yet? I'd say once you stack the fourth nav box, collapsible becomes helpful. --Xeeron 20:14, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

No. They're annoying and unhelpful -- what's the point in hiding content? —Tanaric 03:13, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Usually to avoid clutter and hiding information that may not be relevant to all users but might be useful to enough people that its existence is still warranted. Mostly to prevent clutter. Thulsey 03:20, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Do you have an example? I have chopped up most of the location and mission navbars into smaller pieces already. -- ab.er.rant 03:42, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Aww. Those large navboxes were awesome. =P — Rapta (talk|contribs) 03:43, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

No, I don't have an example, nor do I think they are necessarily needed. But I don't find them annoying nor do I find them unhelpful. I like the mission and location navbars, btw. I guess my stance on this is 'wait and see if it's needed in the future. Not needed now. - Thulsey - talk 09:31, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Collapsible navboxes do the same job that the table of contents does, but does it poorer, as they require more clicks and are less intuitive. —Tanaric 03:30, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

I think we are discussing this kind of nav boxes tanaric. --Xeeron 10:50, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Well, next time you guys start a discussion, include a link to an example at the beginning so I don't make myself look foolish. :) —Tanaric 01:32, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

But...but....it's fun seeing you act the fool Tanaric! :P (Aiiane - talk - contribs) 20:30, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Wether or not you look foolish, is not my concern. :P - File:Drago-sig.gif Drago 05:12, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Adding election notice to Mediawiki:Sitenotice

Since bureaucrat elections should be somewhat rare, I think it might be beneficial to advertise their existence at the top of every article using the site notice facility. What do you guys think? —Tanaric 04:32, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

I concur. -FireFox File:Firefoxav.png 04:34, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm fine with it. It won't apply to everyone that reads it (due to the editcount limitation in the Elections policy), but the people who don't usually read backend articles will probably find it useful =P MisterPepe talk 04:37, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Done. Anyone is welcome to suggest changes, though I believe only sysops can edit the page. —Tanaric 07:19, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Nice idea, but please add a "remove this notice" function (like wikipedia does). --Xeeron 10:48, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

If I had any idea what you were talking about I'd be happy to oblige. I looked through Wikipedia's site notice history and I see nothing much different than ours. —Tanaric 13:23, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Oh, you have to be logged in, and it requires custom JavaScript. If anybody wants to implement a similar feature here, be my guest -- I'll add to the site-wide javascripts. —Tanaric 13:26, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

I would, but my knowledge about java stops at the fact that it is an island in the pacific and they grow coffee there. --Xeeron 20:36, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Anyone could add the following css code to monobook.css:

#siteNotice { display: none; }

Note that this will turn off every note, so you will need to delete the line after the elections to see other messages :) poke | talk 20:43, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Damn, Poke beat me to it. I was going to mention that temp workaround as well. (Aiiane - talk - contribs) 20:44, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

New Ideas for an old Format

I was reviewing my skills list in wiki and realized how hard it was to compile the skills I had vs. the skills I needed. So I printed it out. Big mistake. Tons of pages later I decided to dedicate my user page to posting a new format for the skills pages. I have kept it simple but much more user/printer friendly. I am now asking for the community to review my new rendition of an old idea. Please visit My User Page to review the proposed changes. Please feel free to add input or comments by posting them in the discussion that I can use to better this project for everyone. Also I need to know that a better part of the community is interested in such changes as it will not happen if it is not supported by the majority of users.Scars reminder 22:20, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Wow. I like it. I've been eye-balling the skills list for a while and have cringed at the idea of even thinking of wading into it. I like the presentation aspect of it, no idea what the most practical way of implementing it would be (that's a lot of skills), but it looks nice. I read somewhere about automated inclusion based on categories and things like that for quick reference boxes, but have no idea where that was. :( - Thulsey - talk 06:03, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Ditto, liking it as well, Scars!

And that's DynamicPageList, Thulsey, we're still waiting for it to be installed by the ANet guys. --Dirigible 06:07, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

That's like... 2 lines of code in a config file. :) You don't think the ANet guys like their own update client too much and are writing a mediawiki equivalent, do you? ;-) /shuffles off to think of all the things we can do with DynamicPageList... (edit: I hate when I forget to sign stuff. --The preceding unsigned comment was added by User:Thulsey .

(edit conflict)I like the look too. Nice and compact. I should note that another user and I are taking our own stabs at the format of quick-ref style pages. And auto-inclusion would be nice for that. Take a look at User:Valshia/Sandbox. --Valshia 06:30, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Yea, that certainly looks better than it is now. I think it's perfectly fine for you to add it the main space, maybe using page inclusion for the different attributes. Or... you could wait for the DynamicPageList :). But the primary reason why the lists here aren't very good is because it's still new, and we're more into adding stuff to the wiki than refining and redesigning things. And oh, you might not want to redirect your user page like that, because of GWW:USER. -- ab.er.rant 08:39, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

It is a simple way to make the current list better. In the long run, I hope we get something like guildwiki's quick refences which are great for comparing skills. --Xeeron 12:16, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

First, Thank you all for checking out the project. I really do appreciate the support and the suggestions. We are making quite a nice presentation out of this. Secondly, I do apologize for the simplicity of this layout but I am not very well familiar with the wiki language yet.(Still learning) I'm not even familiar with "page inclusion" and "DynamicPageList". I am trying to research these and other mentioned topics as time prevails. Thirdly, The redirect was a learning mistake. Haven't figured out how to fix it yet lol. Please keep the thoughts and advice coming. All are welcome and appreciated!Scars reminder 10:25, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

The DynamicPageList is an extension to the MediaWiki software we're using. It adds a capability where you can dynamically and automatically generate a page of references or links based on categories, names, or templates used. So it'll make it for an much easier maintenance for all these lists (skill lists, weapon lists, unique item lists, etc.).

To remove your user page redirect, edit this page. You can get to that page via the little link that appears below your User:Scars reminder/Prototypes title.

Page inclusion is just a term used to describe the inclusion of other pages into a page. Taking your skill list as an example, you could create pages like "List of Strength skills", "List of Tactics skills", etc. and then have a "List of warrior skills" page which can then include all those pages like this:

{{List of Strength skills}}
{{List of Tactics skills}}

-- ab.er.rant 11:50, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Don't you have to type {{:List of Strength skills}} for wiki to recognise it as an article and not as a template? - anja (contribs) 11:55, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Speaking from a format and presentation point of view I concur that this is far superior to what is in place (no offense meant to whomever put it in place). I'm just worried about the sheer effort involved in implementing this change since it may end up being wasted effort just to make something look nice which ultimately will be replaced. My vote is to keep this very much in mind as a formatting concept for whatever gets approved at a later date. (thinking of the idea that adding content at this stage is more important than refining what we have. think of the n00bs using help. - Thulsey - talk 14:48, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

I don't think there is a need for subtemplates for skill listings o.O You can just get all of them on one page. And btw. I don't like Valshia's idea because when a skill changes you have to update each page.. Also it's too much information for a quick-ref list. poke | talk 15:14, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Unless I completely miss your meaning, I think skill listings are the perfect place for DynamicPageList to be put into place. Make a list of articles based on categories? Warrior Axe Skills? Check. Pull info from existing articles? Skill pages. Check. Update in one place when skill changes happen (and they happen often) and all your quick references and skill listings update as well. - Thulsey - talk 15:31, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

I don't know. Is this possible without the need of regaining all information on each page hit? If so - give it a try :) poke | talk 16:13, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Yeah. I dunno. Maybe. Is that a big deal? If I hit that page, I wanna see all the skills. Not to be too obstinate or anything, but that's the point. What's the performance hit between hitting all the information on each page load and serving all the information that was manually entered? Just wondering. - Thulsey - talk 16:34, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

I still think that the idea of the DynamicPageList is good, having all the information in one place and having everything else pull from there. As the skills change you only have to update one place. Trust me I know what it is update these paegs after all I was the one that created the Template:Skill list item and the List of core Elementalist skills. The template did make it easier but entering all the information over and over again can be time consuming further more I do see a point to Scar's idea, having a quick reference page where you can see all the skills for a single profession in one place is usefull, and it follows almost the same format I used to create the List of skills by campaign. DanielRomano 20:31, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

OK! What Gives?! I was told to discuss and advertise possible changes. Now I see someone else changed to format of the skills page to something of another poor quality list that still has no clear distinction or system of defining and improving. I can't locate any mentioning of the change anywhere and there was no discussion of this with anyone. Please excuse me if I sound curt, but I worked hard at the first change I made and it was deleted almost instantly because, I was told, I had to discuss it. I have certainly extended every effort to do just that. Now I see this and I don't understand how this occurred without notice of some kind. Have I just waisted my time on trying to improve the skills list by going through the proper steps and taking time to get responses?? Or is there more to this situation that I don't understand?? Please let me know I would greatly appreciate it.Scars reminder 07:37, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Are you talking about Gordon's change to List of warrior skills? If so, he's simply broken up that huge list into columns for easier reading. No one is trying to do anything behind your back or dismissing your efforts unfairly or anything of the kind. Keep going with the discussion here until a consensus is reached, then by all means change everything to the new format. --Dirigible 07:49, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for clarifying that little mix-up. I guess I'm not the only one who wants to revamp the lists a little. Glad to see other effort towards improvement. Kinda jumped off the deep end for a minute. Sorry ALL!!!Scars reminder 08:04, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

That's how the wiki works. Everyone's free to contribute, always prioritising on content over presentation. When someone disagrees with changes, they are allowed to revert it. To contest or explain the revert, a discussion is brought up to reach a consensus on a resolution. -- ab.er.rant 23:36, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Hi everyone, I thinking about the whole thing with the DynamicPageList and I think I found a way around it. We could create a template for each skill which depending on the parameter would show a list item, an info box along with a progress bar, a large 64 pixels skill icon, or a small 25 pixels skill icon. This would allow us to display the skill in different ways but skill keep all the information in one place only.
I also created a format for Quick Reference cards for the professions where you would be able to print them and allow you to see them in way which is easy for to reference different attributes and campaigns.
With that I created some examples which I linked to my page User:DanielRomano for everyone to see. Let me know what you think and suggestions are always welcome.DanielRomano 15:52, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

If I interpret your example correctly, that is exactly the way guildwiki presents the skills. There should be some lenghty discussion of the pros and cons around on the guildwiki talk pages, but to summarize: Having template skills, makes possible some niffy lists, while keeping the number of articles that need to be updated when a skill is changed down. On the downside, editing becomes harder for new editors, since the template structure is less intuitive and requires more wiki code knowledge. --Xeeron 16:21, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

I see... I guess the only other way would be to use the DynamicPageList or a centralized database where we can keep all the information. Since I'm new to Wiki language myself I don't even know if it's possible to use a DB in here, but that could also make it difficult for new users as well. Well, I'll keep thinking about it. DanielRomano 17:01, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Yea, take a look at the skill pages on GuildWiki. The templating is pretty complex, so much so they had to manually create a convenience link to point ppl to edit the actual skill stats. But if you can make it more friendly and intuitive to those who don't know the first thing about templates, it'll be great. -- ab.er.rant 17:14, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

User projects

User:Poke & User:BigBlue are doing a great job with their German translation task force, I was wondering if perhaps we should have a category for such projects? I know there are others and a category that was linked to from one of the community pages may help improve these user projects? any ideas? Category:User projects or Category:Community projects spring to mind. --Jamie 12:25, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Why not just use Guild Wars Wiki:Projects? There isn't really any difference between a "user project" and a "community project". -- ab.er.rant 21:20, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Guild Wars Wiki:Projects are in my opinion more wiki-related. The project BigBlue and I are doing is only GuildWars related. So I don't think it would fit. poke | talk 17:51, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

This wiki is about Guild Wars, so why won't it fit? The description there was written because at that time, the only projects are wiki projects. I don't anyone will have a problem if you reword it a little and separated te projects into a section for wiki-content projects and another section for game-content projects. I just think it's better to keep things centralised, because it's not like we have a long list of projects to warrant splitting the projects page into two. But however it ends up, I feel that having a link from the GWW pages is much more effective at making it known than using categories. -- ab.er.rant 06:54, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Hm, ok, why not? :) Shall I move the project then to GWW-namespace or shall I leave it in my userspace? And if it's moved, are we allowed to continue discussing in German (on talk page) about it? poke | talk 15:30, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

I think it's fine. We only have a convention whereby we use American English for our articles, other than that, I'm not aware of language restrictions. -- ab.er.rant 07:02, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Agreed with Aberrant. This would fit just fine in the Guild Wars Wiki:Projects pages (and will hopefully give people more ideas about similar projects!). And language isn't really an issue, so aye, looks good. :) --Dirigible 12:35, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for moving :) poke | talk 12:05, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

http://fr.wiki.guildwars.com

The adresse is active but the content is in english... How does it works? Is the content shared with rhe US wiki? My login works here too. So???--Ttibot 20:13, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

The adresses for the other language wikis redirect youto the english wiki. -- (gem / talk) 20:15, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Curiosity

What are all those + & vandalism cases about? Is there a person or group trying to deliberatly introduce those small errors into guildwiki, or is this part of some global wiki spam that happens to hit GWW by chance? --Xeeron 10:34, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Just global wiki spam. More about them at GWW:NOTICE#Another issue. --Dirigible 13:47, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Request for a better editing

Just wanted to say that i think that 'Guild:xxx' pages should not appear on the wanted pages list... because like 40% of the first 50 entrys are guild pages. Hope thats possible :-)--Krushak 12:07, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

It's mainly due to the alliance infoboxes. However I don't think there is any easy way to exclude them. --Lemming64 12:27, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

hmm what about adding a box telling "pls add ur guild page her(edit link), this box was add to remove this page from the wanted pages list.." somthing like that? Krushak 13:33, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Because we'd rather not have blue links where there should be red links - there's a lot less chance someone will actually find the guild page and add content to it if it "appears" to already have content. (Aiiane - talk - contribs) 13:51, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

40% of the first 50 isn't too bothersome yet I think. -- ab.er.rant 03:00, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Slow?

Is it just me or is the wiki responding in a very sluggish manner? -- ab.er.rant 01:36, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

Sometimes, it seems so yes. (Aiiane - talk - contribs) 01:42, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

Certainly been noticeably slow for me over the last couple of days. --NieA7 08:14, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

There has been a very noticable slowdown for me. Usually it takes more than 10 seconds for any link I follow to materialize now. --Xeeron 09:33, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

Confirming slowdown. Guild Wars Wiki:Reporting wiki bugs ?- MSorglos (talk|contrib) 16:19, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

Anyone else experiencing a huge slowdown on the wiki over the last few days? I find everything here loading extremely slow, saving pages takes minutes. It might be my connection, since everything else is a bit slow, but nothing is as slow as wiki. - anja 22:26, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

works well for me. - Just_m3 22:50, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Travel between campaigns

← moved to Help:Ask a game question

#gww IRC channel

Well, this is pretty much an experiment right now, but here goes:

We've registered #gww on irc.gamesurge.net. At the moment I'm writing this, there's three of us in there (Auron, Biro, me). If you feel like popping by and saying hello, feel free to do so. The more, the merrier! --Dirigible 10:08, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

This should go on the project page not just the talk page (not an IRC person myself). --Karlos 10:51, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Idioms

is it possible? like wikipedia.org with "one-click-swap". Today, we have: deutch, french, italian and spanish spin-off , so, we don't need to translate all. Thanks. --The preceding unsigned comment was added by User:80.33.163.231 .

I think you mean "Translations", not idioms. ArenaNet has mentioned possible plans for non-English wikis, but that hasn't started yet. -- ab.er.rant 10:57, 26 July 2007 (UTC)