Guild Wars Wiki talk:Community portal/Archive 10

Locking pages that are too big?

Linsey's talk page is really big, but discussion about how big the page is has been making the problem worse (ta-da). What do you people think of locking those pages so only their owners can edit them (and the sysops and etc) until those owners manage to archive stuff? Isaiah's talk page is likely going to have this problem soon, too. Erasculio 14:26, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

How does protecting the page make it any more useful for its primary purpose (contacting the user) than letting it break in some browsers? - Tanetris 14:36, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

We would have less irrelevant stuff, like the discussion about how a big page hurts the wiki and etc that is currently plaguing Linsey's page. It would also prevent the user from being so overwhelmed that he/she cannot reply and archive the content as fast as said content is introduced, resulting in eternally big pages. Plus it would prevent pages like Isaiah's, in which their owner won't appear any time soon, from being something the community would be forced to periodically archive. Erasculio 14:40, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Linsey isn't a sysop btw, so it would have to be autoconfirmed protection only (which renders protection moot, seeing as most input comes from users). I don't think protection would be useful, and it wouldn't help with Linsey's talk page. -- Brains12 \ talk 15:29, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

tbh if the idea was feasible, the ANet IT and liaison usergroups could be modified to edit protected pages. -Auron 15:30, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I was thinking something along the lines of what Auron just mentioned. Erasculio 16:54, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

What is the problem with the solution of the temp archive that was choosen? Seems most simple and least restrictive solution to me.--Xeeron 19:30, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

How would lockeing the paghes help people post on them? Makes no sense. Backsword 19:32, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

The point isn't to assist in posting ideas. It's to keep the wiki and browsers from dying while loading the page until the page's owner gets the chance to archive/reorganize. calor (talk) 22:55, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

It won't help with that if it's already too large. Only reducing it's size will do. Backsword 23:13, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Which will result when the "page's owner gets the chance to archive/reorganize". (Although the point of protecting is to stop it from getting worse.) -- Brains12 \ talk 23:27, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

My concern is having eternally huge pages, in which the owner cannot archive things as fast as people add content. Looking at Linsey's page as an example, I have taken a look at page size during the last entry of some days, and here's the result: on October 15th it had 223 kilobytes, on November 1st it had 271 kilobytes, on November 15th it had 325 kilobytes, on December 1st it had 412 kilobytes. Even ignoring the accumulation thanks to the holidays, her page has been bloating for quite some time now. Erasculio 23:46, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm not happy about it either, but Linsey has explicitly asked that her talk be treated as a forum, and I think respecting her wishes is a good thing. Backsword 23:51, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Please keep in mind that especially due to the holidays, all ANet members weren't as active as they are normally. Locking a talk page so the owner can archive when he gets back (which can take a while), is against its purpose of being a talk page and is neither wanted by the members nor helpful in any way. poke | talk 23:54, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Protection of a page ought to be used as a measure against repeated vandalism and a preventative safeguard against, for example, changing the main page, widely used templates, etc. It should not be used simply because it is convenient (and it this case, as pointed out, it would not necessarily be so). As Backsword said, the only real solution is to reduce the size of such pages. In the meantime I'd like to think that the inaccessibility of the page is in itself a countermeasure against the problem growing; as the page breaks more and more, people will be less and less inclined to post on it, and therefore Linsey's archiving task will become easier. (In other words, a diminishing return or leveling off takes place.)

The purpose of a talk page, especially ones like Linsey's or Izzy's, is for communication and accessibility. It is true that being unable to use the pages normally restricts such usage, and that is why we are discussing measures to fix the problem. A small temporary archive took a few KB with it, but hardly enough; and it's not even a browser-exclusive problem. The problem with these talkpages is that they are so popular, it is hard for even an active user to keep up with everything and archive expediently. To maintain such a page, one has to spend a disproportionate amount of time doing that in relation to other wiki activities, such as actually checking the watchlist, RC, etc., let alone get any "real work" done. It is even harder for Linsey since, unlike Izzy's page, it is treated as any other user talk, so anything can go there... In the end it really is too much work for a single person to do. And while it's generally accepted that administrative intervention is OK as a short-term fix, that is hardly viable over a long period of time. Brains12 got run ragged trying to keep Izzy's page in order through this approach, and it ended as an exercise in futility mostly, not least of which because of the cries of "censorship!" and such.

Anyway I had a potential solution in mind, but I forget it; and I don't know where I'm going with the rest of this, so...yeah. Vili 08:16, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

I suggested this, literally like a year ago, and people didn't like the idea much, but I still maintain (and always have) that an automatic archiving solution (e.g. a bot) of some kind is not only viable, even for our not-horrifically-Wikipedia-like-activity-level, it is better than waiting for user of busy pages to archive them, or randomly protecting talk pages. Bots can be configured to do very specific things, from only archiving sections if the page owner has posted there, to avoiding certain users or sections, to waiting for activity in a section to die down before taking action, to basic sorting of content into relevant archives based on whatever, to just about anything else that people wanted.

To be honest, considered protected a page because people don't want to archive, when a bot could do it easily, is silly - especially considering protection makes talk pages completely irrelevant (yep, it's a talk page, for everything except talking...). Ale_Jrb (talk) 16:04, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Also note, of course, that bots aren't really affected by the size of the page, and they don't get bored, tired or fed up because people post more one day than they do another. Ale_Jrb (talk) 16:06, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Oh, I also think the main opposition before was that people didn't think it would be useful enough. Seeing as this is like, the 60 trillionth discussion on archiving talk pages, that argument is rather moot now. They're also easy to set up, utilise on more than one page - as and when they're needed, equally easy to remove and can be used by people who don't want to archive their own talk pages (i.e. they aren't only useful on these super-active pages). They also don't get into edit conflicts because they're so much faster than people, and don;t spam recent changes (they can be flagged as a bot). Ale_Jrb (talk) 16:13, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

The issue here is not the task of archiving but the fact that Linsey don't want others to archive her talk page as she wants to look at all topics first. There are enough people that are willing to archive for her, but most of those topics are either not yet read by Linsey or not resolved. poke | talk 17:47, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

I notice Linsey being active now, so hopefully this will be a nonissue soon. Backsword 19:49, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Whie poke is right, this won't do anything for the current issue, it doesn't have to be a bad idea in general, there not being any point in doing chores if you can avoid it. As long as it's optin and nonabusable, ofc. Backsword 19:49, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

(RI) Ok, you people are against the idea. But what about offering Linsey the option of locking her page and allowing her to edit it while it's locked, if she wants to? It would be left to her own judgment of whether this would help or not. It would also require us to deal with her talkpage as if it were different from common users' talk pages (if I asked the sysops to lock my page, I don't think they should comply), but in some ways it already is. Erasculio 11:48, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Special:Upload and screenshots

Lately I've been patrolling the upload log for things to tag, and its somewhat scary to see how many people don't properly categorize their images: namely screenshots. Unfortunately, there is little notice for this other then a small checkbox for respective tags. Would it be possible to replace the "Please Note" content (as that has nothing to do with images) with perhaps helpful bullet points on what to tag and not what to tag? It may help in keeping categorization up to date and let people know what the tags are for. It would be better then tips more related to editing a page rather then an image.
I explain things horribly, so if theres confusion in what I mean, I can try to be more clear. But would this be possible? -- Wandering Traveler 23:08, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Makes sense to add/replace some image related bullet points and should be pretty easy to implement it so it only shows up on images I think :P, maybe add any suggestions to the talk page of the respective page? --Kakarot 23:16, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

No, it would be at Mediawiki:Uploadtext and Mediawiki talk:Uploadtext. But I'm not opposed to any change to the text, and would probably support said change(s). calor (talk) 23:18, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Are you sure Calor, the way I read it is WT is referring to the Please note text that you get when you are tagging/editing an image/page with the bullet points rather than what you get when you upload an image. --Kakarot 23:23, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

To be a bit clearer (sorry ><) I'm referring to the Please Note section at the bottom of Special:Upload, where Kakarot is talking about. I don't think theres a problem with Mediawiki:Uploadtext, though I guess it could be implemented there as well. -- Wandering Traveler 23:25, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm thinking of making it required to click on one of the licensing buttons in the form.. I'll think about it tomorrow. poke | talk 23:26, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Instead of Licensing Buttons - why don't you try new-user-friendly buttons such as "in-game screenshot", "fan art", .. idk. These could automatically tag the correct licenses and avoid the general confusion. -- Karasu (talk) 23:30, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

The thing is that you can upload without looking at the buttons at all. Having a lot of additional boxes there would just clutter the room and makes it more unlikely for the users to click anything there. Also in general the normal ANet tag can be used for all that (or in one of its specialized form). poke | talk 23:37, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Depends on how you look at it. Drawn pictures or icons for the users wouldn't go under any License. Did you just change the Special:Upload page btw? You already have to use one of the three licensing options (none, ANet, Screenshot). It might just be my memory and the late hour.. Zzzz 'night -- Karasu (talk) 23:43, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

"Drawn pictures or icons for the users wouldn't go under any License." - that's not right; they go under GFDL. And yes I did the form for the tags on the upload page, and yes there are those three options. The thing is that "none" means GFDL, and screenshots or content by ANet are not GFDL so it would be required to click the appropriate one - but as "none" is enabled by default nothing is checked and so you can upload without even looking at those options. poke | talk 17:45, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Quick bump here. I'm unsure about requiring it, as some uploaded images are not screenshots or Anet images. But requiring Userspace or Guildspace and changing around the text to correspond to images on the upload form would be good... -- Wandering Traveler 00:03, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Linsey's FAQ

It was proposed to Linsey to have a FAQ on her talk page, in order to avoid having the same questions being asked over and over. Her reply, seen here, was a suggestion to have the community making a list of numbered topics for her to answer. Given how this is (again) the kind of big discussion that could flood her already huge talk page, I would propose we have said discussion here and later present the list to Linsey. Erasculio 00:04, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Never mind, the discussion was moved (and then died anyway). Erasculio 12:58, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

RecentChanges "fix?"

"A fix for the visual appearance of RecentChanges was implemented; it now renders cleaner and leaves again more room for the important entries. "
I don't see a difference. Anyone want to clarify?-- anguard 21:01, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

With MW 1.13 the design of the RecentChanges header was completely changed making it very big and bad looking (to a lot people), so we changed it, to emulate the old looking. poke | talk 21:12, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

You can see it on gw2w - it still uses the 1.13 style. -- Brains12 \ talk 21:29, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

I've got them multi-tabbed. I honestly see -no- difference.-- anguard 22:20, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

The blue box, the "go" button being on a separate line, the page entries being pushed down further because of this. -- Brains12 \ talk 23:23, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Balance Discussion Page(s)

People want one, even if it's not under the arenanet namespace, because right now all the interesting balance discussions happen on user article talk pages, namely mine and aurons. Izzy's page is a bad place to do it because you get banned for a month for posting anything related to anet or balance there *cough*. Anyway, I think many people would use this, for both pvp and pve issues. ~Shard 18:28, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

So whats your point? ~ Kurd 19:13, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Put a discussion page for balance somewre where I don't have to archive ;) ~Shard 19:14, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

I don't particularly want more forum-type balance discussion pages in the ArenaNet namespace. The skill feedback area is more than enough, and I think that's only still here because we're waiting for ArenaNet's response to that list of questions. This isn't GuildWarsBalanceWiki. -- Brains12 \ talk 19:41, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Wouldn't it be easier to refer all balance discussions to the existing forums? They are modded, well established and a forum is more well-suited for discussion, honestly. - anja 19:46, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Nobody posts on forums anymore, TBH. I guess it's back to my talk page :P ~Shard 22:10, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

The problem with creating a balance discussion page, IMO, is how it creates the illusion that the Arena Net staff is actually going to read said page. If people decided to use the Skill balance article's talk page to discuss skill balance, I don't think anyone would mind, though; at least people would know it's just another talk page, not something that theorically would receive Arena Net's attention. Erasculio 23:59, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

If people will continue having balance discussion pages in user space then I will propose something to disallow those discussions. It is not the point of having such things on the wiki and especially when we sometime decide to remove the Skill balance suggestions from the wiki, then having discussions in the user namespace just makes everything worse and less controllable.

Forums are for that kind of discussions and if people don't want to use the forums, that are actually even officially read, to discuss that then it is their own fault. But I don't want to have these discussions on the wiki just because people don't want to use the forums. poke | talk 18:20, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Theoretically speaking, let's say a discussion emerged on a user's talkpage about the viability of Build X or the balance of Skill Y. What would you have done? Tell the participants to stop the discussion and go to the forums? Or, let's say someone creates a page with ideas/opinions about balance. They don't care much if ANet reads it or not, but they would be interested in feedback from people on the wiki. Would you be in favor to delete the page and tell them to make a topic on the forums?

I guess my point is that no matter what sort of changes are made to GWW:USER, discussions about balance are going to crop up regardless, because this is Build Wars Wiki, after all. Vili 18:59, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, I was talking about user sub pages that are only created for these discussions. poke | talk 20:32, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Ah, I misunderstood. That seems more reasonable. Redundancy is useful sometimes, but not in this case. (Although I believe it's easier for organizational purposes if you have massive walls of text to write, to keep it in your userspace and redistribute as needed) Vili 04:20, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

I dislike the "control" approach that shines through there. Why forbid people to discuss in their own userspace? --Xeeron 19:43, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

I would say this would be a good example. Pages such as these are more likely than not to become flame bait.--Pyron Sy 23:33, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Xeeron, the fact that there is a userpage policy anyway already sets a precedent for a "control" approach, imo. Vili 04:41, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

The userpage policy has been changed in the past, exactly because people were unhappy with its overly control-heavy approach. --Xeeron 18:26, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Suggestions, take 3

It has been more than one month since the last time this discussion was mentioned here (now on the archive), about removing the suggestions pages once and for all. At the time, the discussion was leaning towards removing the suggestions from the Arena Net space, allowing users to keep suggestions within their own userpages, and telling people who come here for suggestions about their options (forums, nikiwiki or whatever it is now, using the userspace, etc). In the middle of the discussion, Emily updated her journal telling us Arena Net would eventually reply to our question about the suggestions area, so we decided to wait for that reply.
Arena Net has been busy, but I think we have waited enough for this, given how those suggestions pages are very high maintenance (not only regarding cleaning the suggestions, but also thanks to problems with GWW:1RR, GWW:NPA, etc). I would suggest we continue the process of removing those pages. What do you people think? Erasculio 14:20, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

I agree. The first steps should include stopping the addition of new suggestions (by removing the createbox, and possibly deleting new creations that are done manually) and adding notices to the suggestion pages (i.e. the main suggestion page, and perhaps a sitenotice); a waiting period should maybe follow that so people can read up on the details. Then delete. As you said, tell people who try to create new suggestion pages to try forums or specialised wikis etc.

Couple of questions, though. Did we decide to have a list of userspace-suggestion pages? And what do we do with suggestions that are made on the talk pages of ArenaNet users? Remove them? And does this include the skill feedback stuff or just ArenaNet:Guild Wars/Guild Wars 2 suggestions? -- Brains12 \ talk 17:16, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

I think the previous discussing reached a consensus to have a list of userpace links. I think we could make a page called simply Suggestions on the ArenaNet space, redirecting from Guild Wars suggestions and GW2 suggestions, telling people who want to make that kind of contributions about the forums and nikiwiki and making suggestions on the userspace, with the list there. It would be a simple place to link "suggestion-makers" to, IMO, explaining that we wouldn't really have a suggestions section anymore.

The stuff on Arena Net users is going to be trickier. Regina mentioned the community helping to manage those pages if they begin to be filled with suggestions, Isaiah probably doesn't really care with what we do to his page anymore, and regarding Linsey's talk page I think we would have to ask her. Ideally, IMO, we would just delete stuff like this, but it's up to Linsey. Erasculio 01:35, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

Well, I have added the deletion notice on the GW suggestions page and on the GW2 suggestions page, so hopefully the regular contributors there will take notice of this discussion, or at least prepare themselves for the deletion. I have also made a very very rough sketch of what our "ArenaNet: Suggestions" page could be, here (I suck at formatting tables ;_;). Erasculio 00:51, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Hmm. Is it worth the potential issues to include the "short description" field? Would it be simpler to just omit it and simply have a list of links? (Aiiane - talk - contribs) 10:21, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Good point, it's likely better to remove those. We could just replace the table with two text lists, or use the same table for GW and GW2 ideas, what do you people think? (also I'm incredibly disappointed by how little QQing there is about this issue) Erasculio 12:49, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

What you've got here is fine by me. Also, should we go ahead and remove the createboxes? I'm sure that would invite more input too. -- Brains12 \ talk 15:12, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

I think it's time to remove those, too. Deleting things slowly and one by one hopefully will make the entire thing smooth. Erasculio 15:16, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

We all know "smooth" is codeword for "let's hope no one notices". -- Brains12 \ talk 15:21, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Well, it would be incredibly funny to see all that people arguing about details in their suggestions to just wake up one day and see the entire section gone : D But unfortunately I think we will likely end using a site notice or something like that before the deletion itself. Erasculio 15:28, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Wish I had to time to deal with this properly, but, eh, RL.

While I agree we can't wait forever, there is no need to rush either. One can start at the less complicated parts, and those that do not require a response from Anet. We still need Anet to tell us where else we can honestly point suggestors. Additionally, several ANet user's talk pages are already partly used as suggestions forums, presumably because posting on a page with that name makes people feel they have (and deserve) a special conection to Anet. Removing a primary alternative will surely make the overflow, making things worse to the dgree that they may cease to work at all. And they are already at a stage where it's hard to use them for their purpose: contacting that user. We can forget about that with no suggestion page. There is also the issue that people are already not considerate enough to read basic instructions. Same users that then to cause other problems. If we just end things abruptly, those users will just keep posting suggestions anyway. Better to wean them off.

Aditionally, we haven't decided exactly how we are to go about this. Until we know what we are actually I'm inclined to remove the deletion warnings. Instead, I suggest we start by shuting down the GW2 page's forumlike section. It was never meant to be used like that, is, frakly, far to nice to the wrong sort of users, and we had more or less decided to do so even before deleting suggestions came up. It will help people to learn not to post suggestions there. Backsword 19:47, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

I would like to keep the deletion notice, even if only to let people know the end goal of the current process is to delete the entire thing, allowing them to come here and state their opinion if they disagree. IMO, it would be better to just delete everything and let contributors know that no suggestion is accepted at all (Regina had mentioned where we could redirect people to, anyway), but if you people would rather delete things piece by piece, ok. Erasculio 10:35, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Given that Regina has made it blatantly clear that there is no alternative to the suggestion pages, I don't see how we can delete them without a giant backlash. I think this whole idea should be shelved. (EDIT) Quite honestly I thought this had been killed earlier, or I would not have added my suggestion to Linsey today. -- Wyn 23:44, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

Regina did mention alternatives: "Before the wiki was in place, players posted suggestions on the fansite forums, and that practice continues. The reality is that, due to the very nature of what a wiki is, forums are a lot better for discussion than wikis. As everyone has experienced, it's really hard to actually discuss something on a wiki. Players have always had the fansite forums to discuss suggestions. Players have always been able to (and they do quite frequently) send in suggestions to us directly via email or PM. There are already ways for you to give your suggestions and feedback to us". There would be even an alternative within the wiki, through the personal suggestions pages. Explaining that is pretty much the point here, the sketch of what hopefully will become our only suggestions page within the Arena Net space. Erasculio 00:57, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Well, I still have to oppose deleting them on the grounds of the chaos it's going to create on Regina and Linsey's talk pages, not to mention the rest of the ArenaNet staff. -- Wyn 03:29, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Regina's page is the only one that could become a mess, IMO. She has accepted help from the community to keep her page in order in case people begin filling her page with suggestions. Linsey's page, in other hand...I don't think it will become any worse than it is now. Anyone who knows about Linsey's page has no reason to make a suggestion on the suggestion pages, where the idea could be edited by others, deleted or left ignored, instead of making said suggestion on the page of an Arena Net employer that will read and reply as soon as she can. The other Arena Net employers are usually left alone, since they're not that well known.

In the end, I think taking care of one talk page with the help of Regina (at most two talk pages, counting Linsey's one) would be easier than taking care of two large sections with dozens of subsections. We would need a firm hand telling people to not post suggestions on Regina's page, but other than that, I don't think it would be any worse than it already is. Erasculio 04:35, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Well, Linsey actively promoted people leaving suggestions on her page, until she got backlogged with the December updates, and Wintersday. I think she's beginning to realize it was a mistake and is showing more willingness to accept assistance from us in managing stuff. Ok.. I give up, delete away. -- Wyn 04:49, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm not trying to force my opinion on this issue or anything. I think the wiki as a whole got into a very bad spot with the entire suggestions thing (be it at its own section or at the staff's page), and there isn't really any easy solution, but I do think deleting the current sections is going to help with the high number of issues that keep appearing over them. Erasculio 10:46, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Since the warning box has been placed on both suggestion pages, and the create suggestion pages have been removed and deleted, I removed the wording on the 2 main pages about using the provided template, etc. I think if we are going to do this, we should start coming up with the new wording, basically expanding on the warning box, rather than just pointing them to these discussions, but actually telling them how to create their personal suggestion pages, as well as listing suggested forums, etc. to get them started in that direction. I also think nudges to people on staff pages to take their suggestions to the fansite forums would be helpful. I can tell you that both Andrew Patrick and Regina log in on www.guildwars.guru every day, though there are many other forums out there. -- Wyn 22:00, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

We were thinking as using something along these lines after the deletion to explain to people what to do with their own suggestions. If you want, we could begin using that page now (by moving it to Arena Net: Suggestions), adding a section explaining how to create personal suggestion pages, and linking there from the warning box on the GW and GW2 suggestion pages (feel free to rewrite anything you want there, by the way, that page is in my userspace but it isn't meant to be mine). Erasculio 22:30, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

I was thinking about adding a link in the future Suggestions pages that would take an user to the page "User:Username/Suggestions", or "User:Username/GW_Suggestions" and "User:Username/GW2_Suggestions". This would allow users to make their own subpages with suggestions a bit easier, as they would only have to click on a link and begin editing. However, I completely lack wiki expertise to make a link like that...What do you people think, is that something worth implementing? Do you people know how to do that? Erasculio 10:51, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Special:Mypage/Suggestions? :) - anja 11:26, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

That's perfect, Anja, thank you : ) Erasculio 15:21, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Could we get a clear list of approximate dates/lengths we're going to go through? For example, what's stage one and how long is that going to last before stage 2? I think that would make it easier for us to see when things are going to happen and lets us keep track of what we're doing and what to do next (obviously). That's assuming we still plan on going through with this - that's the case, right? -- Brains12 \ talk 20:00, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

My guess is we are well into stage one since the warning has been put up, the creation templates are gone, the scratchpad is gone etc..... -- Wyn 20:55, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Would it be possible to recreate the Creation box and suggestion template, but using the Special:Mypage/Suggestions target? That would make it easy for people to create their own suggestion page, rather than trying to provide detailed instructions. It would also categorize them properly. -- Wyn 22:23, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

That's what they said last time >.>

I don't think that would work if we're only having suggestions in userpages, as unregistered users could create them by clicking a button. I think it's up to users to make sure their suggestion pages are maintained properly (which includes naming, categorisation, and general maintenance of the text). Instructions wouldn't go beyond "create a userpage (preferably at /Suggestions), categorise it into <category>" if we're going for a DPL list; "[...] add your suggestion page to the list" if we're going to manual addition. Doing that also ensures that these users have some basic wiki knowledge, thus providing a higher chance they'll actually maintain their page (if you know how to do something, you're more likely to use the wiki and know how to maintain your pages). -- Brains12 \ talk 22:31, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

... um... great! Well at least there's a solution on the table that has a consensus, finally. The thing that really irritates me is that people would rather take credit for suggestions made than actually getting their suggestion across for Anet to read. That was my goal when I first started editing the suggestions pages, in the end, too many people moaned, so I just left it in a mess. It doesn't matter though, at least things are moving along now. I do think it's a good idea to have suggestions made posted on each individuals userspace, that way the user is in complete control over their suggestions and will gain full credit for it. Unfortunately they're less likely going to be read - being a userspace and the restrictions that we have linking from articles to userspaces. The best part that we're gonna lose with the current system is that some of the good suggestions that were made came from unregistered users, or registered users with little to no activity. But it's getting out of hand and we need a fix yesterday. In the meantime, I'm just going through each category from top to bottom, doing my best to consolidate all of the suggestions to make them succinct. (Terra Xin 19:50, 10 February 2009 (UTC))

Terra, the user suggestion pages will still be linked on the ArenaNet:Suggestion pages as they are currently, it's just that is ALL that will be there, so they will have just as much chance of being read by ArenaNet as any of the current suggestions have. -- Wyn 21:15, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

My only concern is that there's going to be multiple users with the same suggestion, and without categories, it makes more work for Anet to scoop through. And to add, half of the suggestions that actually are good will most likely be lost. But I don't want to stop this from happening, its been like... 6 months since the issue was first brought up? I want this change done just as much as the next person. (Terra Xin 02:26, 11 February 2009 (UTC))

The only thing we have done, that we weren't going to do anyway (if the sections were kept), is to add that note to the top of the front pages. Of course, those changes with have otherwise been accompanied by a new help section. But in general things seems to have worked as far as new suggestions are seen. Some mistaken edits, some people who have managed to create new suggestions without help. That mainly indicates to me that people aren't passing by the frontpages anymore, but have some link directly to other pages.

Can see two things needed here; changing to new frontpages, and adding a note to every page still in anet space. Would need wikichu for the latter. I think it's imnportant to direct users to the other ways since that's the positive thing, esp. userspace as that retains one of the major points suggestion space had; to bring new editors to the wiki. Actual deletion of unwanted pages can wait, a long time if needed, since they don't do much harm.

Still, I don't think we move forward until the issue with Anet user talk pages is solved. It is already unworkable, and this isn't makeing things better. Backsword 02:51, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

I've made a proposal for solving this, in general, not just for this situation. Backsword 03:20, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Couldn't we use a sitenotice for the ArenaNet space pages? It'd be much simpler, and of course it would be automatically applied to newly created pages as well as already existing pages. It would also take away the possible "I-can-bypass-deletion-by-removing-this-note-olol" and "what's-this-doing-on-my-page,-I'ma-remove-it" factors. -- Brains12 \ talk 15:09, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

I do not believe it possible to create a per page site notice. Backsword 07:28, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

Wouldn't a {{#ifeq: {{NAMESPACE}} | ArenaNet | notice }} work Backsword? That's what I figured Brains was referring to. --Kakarot 14:34, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

I haven't tested this, but I would imagine that would place a blank sitenotice with just a dismiss link for most users. I could be done, but I would expect many to dismiss without ever reading (as there are nothing to read for them), thus missing it entirely. It would also show up on pages that are not to be touched, such as the bug reports. Backsword 06:48, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

So

(RI) So...

1. Regarding the userspage suggestions, I agree with Brains. My previous idea of making a link that would allow anyone to directly create Username:Suggestion wouldn't work, as that would allow IP users to make suggestion pages way too easily. I believe we could just make a small note explaining people how to make those suggestion subpages, tell them to add a specific DPL parameter, and replace the two current lists (the GW suggestions and the GW2 suggestions) with DPL generated lists. This would allow us to lock the Suggestions pages, preventing people from ignoring what's on the page and just placing their ideas there.
2. Regarding the talkpages of the Arena Net people, I don't think there's nothing we should do at the moment. Isaiah's page is irrelevant since he doesn't read it anyway, Regina's page is likely going to be well policed if there's need for it, and Linsey is going to write rules for her talk page after she unlocks it.
3. Regarding the site notice: I would suggest making a full site notice telling people that all Suggestions pages on the Arena Net namespace will be deleted on March 30th. People who don't care could just dismiss the notice, and people who care could join this discussion with plenty of time to prevent the deletion.

Erasculio 16:33, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

Sounds fine to me. -- Brains12 \ talk 17:38, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

So suggestion pages (GW and GW2 ones only?) will be deleted? Can someone sum up what was discussed now? Will the suggestions will be maintained in userspace now or what? poke | talk 17:40, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

• Stop the creation of new suggestion pages by removing the createboxes (done already), and perhaps deleting new pages which were created manually.
• Put notices on the suggestion pages, either by a namespace-sitenotice, a wiki-wide sitenotice, or notice boxes on suggestion pages (by Wikichu)
• One (or two) ArenaNet-namespace page(s) will be kept as a list to userspace suggestions which should be maintained by their respective users. Will also contain info about other websites and forums which house suggestions, and instructions on how to create a userspace suggestion.
• GW and GW2 suggestion pages will be deleted.
• Rejoice.

-- Brains12 \ talk 17:48, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

Ah okay, but the other ArenaNet namespace content will be kept, right? This is only about the GW and GW2 suggestion pages. The other things like skill feedback and bug reports will be left as they are, right? poke | talk 17:51, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

This is just about the suggestion pages, yeah. Bug report pages will be kept - they're actually useful and used on a regular basis by ArenaNet. I don't think we're including skill feedback in this, but it's probably going to be brought up later... One thing at a time :P -- Brains12 \ talk 17:56, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

Okay, just wanted to be sure :) Thanks. poke | talk 17:58, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

Why delete the suggestion pages instead of simply locking them? --Xeeron 11:49, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

Izzy just posted on his page, and Linsey's page is a disater that had to be locked to prevent it from colapsing. I'm confident things needs to be done to solve the issue. Backsword 06:53, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

Izzy posted on his page 2 days ago, and basically indicated he was no longer working on GW1, so I see the traffic there diminishing greatly. Linsey's page is getting cleaned up and reorganized and when it gets unlocked will have a much more coherent system in place. I personally have more concerns for Joe's page than either Linsey's or Izzy's. -- Wyn 11:51, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

Xeeron has a point. Locking them would allow ANet to look at the existing suggestions later. poke | talk 14:11, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

The suggestion pages were designed to help regulate traffic flow - first. Getting Anet's attention to get them read came second. Unfortunately, a lot of us have been looking at the second reason rather than the main one. They were made to ease the tension off of the other areas, and with them gone, it'll make those pages worse. Like I said before, deleting the suggestion pages is a step forward, but you have to follow trough because the traffic will just go somewhere else on the wiki. Ideally, there should be enough notices and guidelines on the Anet space to inform users where their suggestions should be going, but if they aren't getting read, then we have to change it so it becomes readable. The sad thing is that on the main page of GW2 suggestions, the notice is in BOLD and it still doesn't get read. :( (Terra Xin 16:44, 15 February 2009 (UTC))

I think it's been proven on Izzy's page that though at times trying, it is possible to redirect people to the more appropriate places. I think we have pretty much all come to the conclusion that fansite forums are a much better vehicle for suggestions, and Regina has indicated that those forums get read. As for just locking the pages, all that does is lock the existing pages, it in no way stops people from creating new ones in the ArenaNet namespace, they are still creating them even without the creation boxes and templates. If we really wish to see the entire suggestion area disappear with the exception of a single page for each with the User Suggestion page links and the instructions on how to create one and link it, the rest need to be deleted from the Anet Namespace imo. By giving people notice that the pages will be deleted on a certain date unless they are moved to userspace, we are giving the people that care about them a chance to retain them. I also think we should notify the ArenaNet staff that they are being deleted, so if they wish to read them, they should do so. -- Wyn 16:57, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

If Regina can make that kind of indication then that's perfect! We could make a notice at the top of the soon-to-be-reformed suggestions page to recommend users to head out to fan-sites to post their suggestion (without actually listing those sites) as a further option. (Terra Xin 17:44, 15 February 2009 (UTC))

If there is no main page to link from, the problem of newly created pages will be a minor one. --Xeeron 20:54, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

I'm not fond of locking the suggestion pages instead of deleting them. Doing so would create a number of problems:

1. We would end with way too much trash. Many suggestions are really bad and have been abandoned by their creators, without anyone else bothering to try to salvage what are basically unsalvageable ideas. Keeping those on the wiki would not add anything to the community, especially given how they would be forever locked, without the option of being improved by anyone.
2. Without a main page to link from, those pages would be so hidden that I doubt even Arena Net would be able to find them.
3. At the same time, they could cause confusion for the users who see those suggestions on the Arena Net space and ask why their own suggestions cannot be there.

I believe a site notice allowing people to know about the deletion way in advance will be enough for those users who care about the suggestions to archive them on their own userspace. Everything that no one cares about would be gone, but then again I doubt that's much of a loss. Erasculio 22:07, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

Would it be a problem to wait with the sitenotice till after the current election? That would move the deletion date to later but wouldn't create a confusion. poke | talk 12:47, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Well, deleting them all is a more polite version of saying "They are all crap that noone needs to read". Imo, that is a pretty harsh statement (and also one sending all the wrong signals to everyone who excerted effort in that area). In any case, if a majority wants to delete, I wont be the one to stop it, I'll just repeat my request from a while ago: Please, instead of deleting the pages, move them all to my userspace (I'd simply copy them, but moving preserves the history and does not result in double RC pings). --Xeeron 17:03, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

If no one wishes to preserv that specific page, then I don't see any effort and the signal would be the right one. I do not believe Anet suffers from a lack of pages to read, so any intention to point them to qany specific page is also an intention to point them away from others. Given there will be userpages with maintained suggestions someone actually cares about, the choise seems clear to me. There are also other minor issues, like maintenaence and given the right impression.

Still, if I understand correctly, we all agree to change the frontpages so they'd still be hidden. THat also means it's not something we need to decide quickly, since we can still go ahead with the rest.

Also, Xeero, you're as allowed as anyone else to move pages into your userspace. That means you could exercise the discrtion on what to keep that is intended.Backsword 11:37, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

I do share your concern for the emergent situation on Joe's talk. It may work for now, but as more people discover the page... well, I think we can predict. Izzy has been on GW2 for a while now, that's not new. He still uses the wiki, and people still tend to start general topic on any Anet members page. I would want that to happen on my talk. As for Linsey, we'll see, but a locked page may as well be no page, perhaps even worse since it gives unequal treatment to different users. And there is a point in mediawiki including special functionality for user talk pages. Backsword 11:42, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Whatever type of notice we do put up, I think we need to do so soon, so people who wishes to move suggestions can actually find them using the current system. Backsword 11:37, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

I think the warning box needs to be included on each of the section pages as well, and if we have decided on March 30th as the ending date of open suggestions, we should also add that to the warning box rather than just links to this discussion. -- Wyn 12:19, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Xeeron, if you would like to have all the pages moved to your userpage then I have no problem in having Wikichu move the page to your userpage when the decision is reached instead of deleting them.

For the notice I think it would be better to have the notice after the current election; so we better move the decision date to a later date. poke | talk 14:52, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

I agree with poke. We need a full site notice for this so no one misses the deletion, and given how we have a site notice right now for the election, I think it would be better to delay the process a bit. I think we could delete the GW suggestions and the GW2 suggestions pages (only those two pages, not the subpages with the actual suggestions) now and replace them with a modified version of this (without the quick links for creating the User:Username/Suggestions pages, explaining to people how to add a category to their own suggestion pages and with the current table replaced by a DPL based one). Then, on March 1st (after the election), we could have a site notice telling people that all the suggestions outside the userspace will be deleted on April 15th. Erasculio 22:58, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

I didn't mean instead of the site notice, I meant now with the addition of the site notice after the election. Sorry if I caused confusion. -- Wyn 00:33, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

As I said earlier, I think it important for the current navigation to remain while hte notice is up. Not everyone, especially new users, have the ability to find pages when the link they used to use disapears. Backsword 17:17, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

Using Wikichu would be cool and sparing me a lot of clicking =) --Xeeron 17:24, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

I guess this discussion is moot since Erasculio has taken it upon himself to just implement his idea of how this should be done. Good luck. -- Wyn 13:28, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

As I already replied to Wynthyst on my talk page, the deletion of the suggestions still have to be discussed. When the site notice will be added, when the deletion will take place, if we will give other kinds of warning to users, using Wikichu to automatically preserve the pages or not, and etc, are all points which we need to discuss and later implement. No consensus there yet.

What I have felt there is consensus on is changing the focus of the suggestion pages from the ArenaNet space to the userspace. I have implemented some changes letting the other users know of that focus, while following Backsword's request above of keeping the old navigation system so new users can find the old suggestions. I see this as just one more step in the beginning of this process; Wynthist accused me of being presumptous, but I think that was just the part of consensus in which people have already agreed. Erasculio 13:38, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Recapping...

On the process of removing the Guild Wars and Guild Wars 2 suggestions, two steps have been taken:

1. Adding a notice to the Guild Wars suggestions and the Guild Wars 2 suggestions telling people about the incoming deletion.
2. Adding a centralized suggestions page explaining the idea to keep suggestions only within the userspace.

We still have to...

On the deletion:

1. Agree on the use of the full site notice letting people know when the suggestions within the ArenaNet space will be deleted. That has more or less :already been agreed upon, IMO.
2. Agree when the site notice will be implemented. I think the current idea is soon after the end of the bureaucrat election, but no specific date has been accepted yet.
3. Agree with the date of the deletion itself.
4. Agree with what to do before deleting the pages; Xeeron wants to move everything to his userpage, and poke has offered to use Wikichu in order to do that. Does anyone think we should offer those moves to other users, or let other users know about said move, or something along those lines?

On what to do after the deletion:

1. Agree on the layout of the current ArenaNet: Suggestions page. Should it list something else? Is it listing too many places? Is the layout too weird? Should we go back to a GW suggestions page and a GW2 suggestions page?
2. Agree on what to do about people posting suggestions on the ArenaNet: Suggestions page. Should we just delete those suggestions? Move them to the user's userpage? Lock the suggestion page so no one adds ideas there, given how the table for personal ideas is DPL based anyway?
3. Agree on what to do with the ArenaNet portal. It's currently listing the Suggestions in a very large header. Do you people want to change it to something less visible? Keep it as it is now?

And I think that's all that's left to do. Anything else? Erasculio 14:22, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

I think before we put up a site notice and invite all those people in this discussion, we should move this to somewhere else. Maybe we should create some Guild Wars Wiki:Suggestion restructuring page explaining what we want to do and how it is done and have the talk page as an open place for the comments of users. Having them all posting here in this huge and unstructured discussion without a real starting point for new users is really not good. That is one point that I don't like when you implemented your ArenaNet:Suggestions already, because you invited and announced the deletion already - although the deletion is one point we want to discuss with everybody when the site notice is up.

Then I think we should put up a site notice in the first March week - as soon as we have some preparations for the discussion done (for example if we use such a page, the page has to be ready and it has to contain all needed information before). poke | talk 15:09, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

As it just came up: How do we want to organize the suggestions in user space? Do we want to allow multiple pages added to the category and therefor making the suggestion lists blow up? Or do we want to have people only one page that has the category but allow them to link from there to multiple sub pages containing the real suggestions? poke | talk 15:13, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Maybe we could make a project page about this, beginning with an explanation about why have we come to the point of agreeing with the deletion of the suggestion pages, so new people get to understand the entire thing? I think that's not what projects are usually about, but I don't think anyone would mind if we added a project for this.

The deletion had already been mentioned on the notices that were added to the GW and GW2 suggestion pages, although I had hoped said notices would bring more people to this discussion, something that has not really happened. If you would rather remove the deletion notice from the current suggestions page, feel free to do so - one of the reasons why I have moved that page from my userspace was so other people felt they could edit it more freely.

I think the userspace suggestions would be better organized like MithranArkanere's ones: with a central page linked in the list, from which the user may link as many suggestion subpages as he/she wants. We would allow people to make their pages as they wish, without cluttering the suggestion list. Erasculio 15:55, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

No need for a "project"; I don't see a problem with using the Guild Wars Wiki namespace for other things than policies and guidelines, especially as the results of this discussion concerns a large number of pages. And I want such a page so that when we invite people to discuss it, they don't have to go through a discussion like this, or even read the text walls discussions before, so they can just look at the page and get a basic idea of what is planned and how it will be done without having to read through everything. And we have a central place where we can discuss it, without annoying the community portal any longer. poke | talk 16:05, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Go for it, then. Such page would help. Erasculio 16:21, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Okay, Guild Wars Wiki:Suggestion pages restructuring. Any further discussion should go there only. So if you want to continue on something that was said here, please start a new topic on the talk page and refer to this page then. Also feel free to improve that page. poke | talk 17:35, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

lol take three

I'm taking bets guys! The man who predicts with "take" will solve this issue gets the pot!

I got 10 riding on take 5! -- NUKLEAR IIV 14:18, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

I was just browsing randomly...

and I saw this in the commented out instructions on a new Guild page:

Note: You can now remove all the comments in this code, to make it more clearer.

I don't really know how to fix it, but that almost causes me physical pain to read. Is anyone able to fix it? (For clarification for non-native speakers, "more" and "clearer" are redundant, the sentence should likely read "You can now remove all the comments in this code to make it clearer" or alternatively "You may now remove all the comments in this code to increase clarity") Misery 08:10, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Modified to "You can now remove all of the comments in this code if you so desire." (Aiiane - talk - contribs) 10:52, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Copyright Violations

Guild Wars Wiki:Copyrights isn't very enlightening, at the moment whenever a potential copyright violation comes up it turns into a clusterfuck of people who think they understand copyright law bantering and bickering over what is allowed, what falls under fair use and what doesn't. Would it make sense to either expand on the aforementioned page or create a policy/guideline to explain what is definately acceptable, what is definately not and possibly some grey areas? Forgive me if this already exists, but I haven't seen it. I know PvX recently did something similar here, although it is probably missing some things still, such as photographs from real life that contain a poster of Totoro. Misery 13:50, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Simple. We don't do fair use. So there is nothing to argue. Just tell them that. Backsword 13:58, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Cool, want to actually write that down somewhere, or should we all just remember it? Misery 14:01, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Guild Wars Wiki:Copyrighted content is the policy that tells us (= the editors) what content we can use. Guild Wars Wiki:Copyrights explains outstanding people how our content is released. poke | talk 14:06, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Sure, I make a copy of Guild Wars Wiki:Copyrighted content and put in my userspace if that would help. Backsword 14:07, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Actually, all that was required was the links that poke provided. Thanks poke, I missed that second one. I will note however that it makes no mention of the exclusion of fair usage or the idea that any depiction of a copyrighted image regardless of whether you drew/photographed it yourself is still a copyright violation. I think in general people have a poor understanding of the fact that if they upload an image here, they are releasing it under the GFDL. If you link someone (such as Linsey) there at the moment to explain why she can't have a photograph of her desk on her journal page, it's not going to be very convincing. Misery 14:14, 28 February 2009 (UTC)