Guild Wars Wiki talk:Community portal/Archive 7

ArenaNet:Guild Wars 2 suggestions

Another potentially good idea ruined by lack of moderation. There's so much shit here that ANET won't bother to look at it. For more info, see here. Can we come up with a system for filtering this? People don't seem to understand that GW1 runs on a different system than GW2. People also don't understand the difference between a solid, helpful suggestion and an annoying rant about GW1. — Skakid 23:32, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Ska, you should maybe read the wall of text at the top of this page. It's all about how to make changes to volatile talk pages and suggestion pages. -- Wyn 23:39, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Actually, I think Skakid is talking about a different problem. IMO, we have way too many suggestions, and many of them are just, well, really bad. Too many of those and it would eventually reach a point in which it's not worth for Arena Net reading them anymore. Some kind of filter would help, I think, but then again anything along these lines would cause a nice drama storm. Erasculio 00:20, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

I believe they are tied together, especially when he's saying "Another potentially good idea ruined by lack of moderation." I guess my question is... who is suppose to do this "moderation" that he's talking about? Ok, removal of off topic rants should be part of what's happening in the above discussion, as for the sheer number of suggestions, who but Anet should be making the decision of what is or is not a good suggestion? You Erasulio? Skakid? the person making the suggestion? I guess if discussion occurs regarding the suggestion and consensus is reached (not trash talk spam of "ur baed") that the suggestion doesn't have merit it should be deleted, however, with the sheer number of suggestions being submitted HOURLY, is it really reasonable to believe that's going to happen? Just my thoughts of course. -- Wyn 00:44, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

Veting system. Not to delete stuff (at least not in the beginning), but rather to list those "accepted" suggestions in a main page and push everything else to a more hidden area, hopefully making people understand that only the good stuff will be displayed proeminently (and if that doesn't work, just delete the bad stuff). Of course, actually implementing a vetting system that works and is worth the effort is an entirely different thing, hence my comment above about a drama storm. Worst comes to worst, this whole thing could follow the Builds section of Guild Wiki's path. Erasculio 01:05, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

I don't really like the idea of a vetting system -- it assumes 'the people' are making educated, well thought-out, and credible decisions (which, as a suggestion rather ironically pointed out, isn't always the case). If necessary, we may have to go the PvX route and 'promote' some 'suggestion-masters' :/. This is becoming too much like GuildWiki's builds section... but I doubt we could follow their decision in deleting everything because we have no 'leader' or authority. I think now would be a good idea to ask ArenaNet those questions (I think Calor's drafted a nice list) to hear their opinion on how it's used and what they aim to do with it, considering this is all for them. -- Brains12 \ talk 10:20, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

No. Not a vetting system. The problem is exactly what Ska said - a lack of moderation. Some of the shit suggestions is truly shit. What many people - mostly anonymous - do is log on, make a half-arsed list and make impossible/impractical/irrelevant demands, and go away, never to be seen or to be responded to. Some of the serious suggestions (Read: Can you find a single herring in an ocean?) gets hopelessly lost.

IMHO, I'm just going to suggest what I've suggested for the "volatile" pages. Sic an admin, give no bag count and declare open season. Let him/her delete reposts or poorly-thought out suggestions. -- NUKLEAR ^IIV 12:16, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

The thing is, using a system of "suggestion-masters" to filter which decisions are good ones and remove the rest, and giving admins room for deleting bad suggestions and keeping the rest are not that different things. IMO, a system of "suggestion-masters" would be better as we would have a group with a specific purpose, taking care of this section, as opposed to throwing the job over the admins and expecting some of them to do it (not to mention that the ability of judging suggestions and the ability of being a good sysops are not necessarily seen together). Erasculio 13:02, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

When I say "admin" I mean "anyone with power and empowerment to delete useless shit". You may choose to call them "suggestion masters". -- NUKLEAR ^IIV 13:11, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

You are basically saying that we should just dump the problem to sysops who aren't expected to do editorial review. Instead of wishing for sysops to go in and delete what needs to be deleted, have you tried going in and suggesting what should be deleted? It helps. -- ab.er.rant 16:37, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

@Skakid, got any suggestions for a filtering system? The current system, which you deem to be failing terribly, is just what those who can be bothered can come up with. Personally, since we've basically decided not to duplicate the effort of PvXwiki in maintaining builds, I'm actually in favor of not duplicating the effort of maintaining suggestions as well. -- ab.er.rant 16:37, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

The problem, IMO, is that while we could just prevent this wiki from having a builds section, I doubt we could ever remove the suggestions section from here (like Poke said above, that's likely not going to be possible as long as we have official Arena Net representatives here). And if we don't have that many choices in keeping a suggestion section, I think either we could leave it as is is right now (something IMO borderline useless, but at least it does not require too much admin attention) or try to improve it into something more useful, which would require a lot (and probably A LOT) of effort.

Expecting users to mark with the delete tag what they expect to be deleted is not going to work, IMO, as it would still leave us with the problem of why are some suggestions being deleted while others aren't. If they get deleted over their merits, we have again the problem of who is deciding what is a good suggestion and what isn't - if that falls to the sysops, we end with the same situation Nuklear suggested anyway. Erasculio 16:44, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

Alternative suggestion: Allow peopl to slap delete tags to meaningless or misinformed suggestions.

I'm guessing that's what ab.er.rant wants me to do. Problem is, after the, oh, I dunno, second delete tag, people will start to bitch and cry about their wonderful suggestion. That's exactly what happened at the builds namespace. I'll gladly Nuke (it is my middle name!) any meaningless pages, but if there isn't some sort of authority in the nuker bestowed by the administration, people will start to bitch about it.

I don't want people bitching at me. -- NUKLEAR ^IIV 17:16, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

I'd love to see someone, anyone, even Nuke, be given the authority to say "Sorry, but this is absolutely stupid/inviable/pointless" and be able to delete it without being second-guessed and whined at. Calor 17:19, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

My suggestion? Take 3 people (I suggest Backsword, TerraXin and Nuclear), ask them to evaluate all suggestions by giving them a note from 1 (really bad one) to 10 (perfect one). Take the three scores for a suggestion, sum it and divide by 3; all suggestions with a result equal or below 5 (which means a suggestion that isn't good) get deleted, no questions asked. First time an user recreates one of his deleted suggestions he's warned, second time blocked. Erasculio 17:20, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

Hmm, vetting systems... I like the general idea, although the specifics and (amount of) people need to be worked out. Calor 17:26, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

I'd be glad to do it, but, remember, if someone is asked to do it, then that someone needs to be given a hunting permission, and no bag limit.

Also, there is simple no need to "evaluate" suggestions. While I do think the majority of the crap that is posted there is inane, I (or anyone for that matter) simply cannot go out and say "Fuck this, nuke that, I love this etc." People will bitch about that, too.

Tbh, If we just erased the reposts, the illegible posts, and, quite frankly, all the discussion, those pages wound be fine.

Now that I mention it, I think it would be beneficial to nuke the "I want this" "this would be so cool" or "this looks like WoW" comments. It is a sugegstion page, not a discussion one, so I'd say it should be treated like one. -- NUKLEAR ^IIV 17:31, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

I'd agree on having suggestion-masters... terra and backsword could correct grammar/short down walls of text to help arenanet getting the point of the suggestion, nuke and skakid could delete tag worthless shit, and anyone posting like "oh i want to be a god whit super awsome powers athat can explod buldings cuz that wud be cewl" should be blocked to prevent failure. also the "why this would work/why this won't work" thing shouldn't be, discussions should be on the talk page. --Cursed Angel 17:49, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

The problem with that is the amount of suggestions that flood in. @abberant, no, I haven't thought of anything practical yet =/ — Skakid 20:00, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

As Skakid said, vetting systems won't work; there's too many. Do recall that builds on GuildWiki started off with a simple vetting system as well and those doing the vetting will easily feel overwhelmed and burned out as time goes by. But if some of you think it's still worth trying, any vetting system should not rely on specific users. That'd be unfair to expect them to always take care of the mess. A point-based evaluation system on the talk page would work, if a bit simplistic. Any suggestion that fails to get enough points just gets deleted. My concern is with the effort needed to basically do what others are already better equipped to do so. Check the nikiwiki link I provided, maybe we can get ideas for an evaluation guideline. -- ab.er.rant 03:31, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

The problem with allowing anyone to be part of the vetting system is that we would be giving that power to the same people who make the very bad suggestions we're trying to get rid of. I would rather have a system based on people whose opinions are trusted, which means limiting the vetting system to a few users.

IMO, it's the same as the sysops. We don't give anyone the power of using sysop tools because then the same vandals we're trying to get rid of would abuse such tools; but at the same time, if a sysop feels overwhelmed, he/he is free to resign or even take a break from his position. A similar system could be used for the suggestions page, with a group of trusted individuals managing the section together and removing the bad ideas. Erasculio 16:36, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

A vetting system is unnecessarily complicated. I think it would be more effective to a) give Sysops/Suggestion Masters the power to expressly delete terribad solutions and allow them to moderate the talk pages or, barring that, b) allow them to do tag pages for deletion and then delete them if the tag is uncontested by either a) another Sysop/Suggestion Master, or, barring that, b) by any member of the community (excluding the author of the suggestion). The fact is that, aside from "Suggestion Masters," we already have the tools to do what's necessary to keep the suggestion pages (relatively) viable, so why waste all this effort trying to implement a new system when, so long as we have a number of people willing to do the work (Sysops or Suggestion Masters, either way) that has previously gone undone, there's no need to do so. Besides, ironing out a more complicated suggestion would also involve a lot of wasted time going over each and every one of the minor details. *Defiant Elements* +talk 22:46, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

It has been decided that Suggestion Bourgeoisie is a better term than Suggestion Master. — Skakid 22:50, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

We could use DPL to list all suggestions currently tagged for deletion on a suggestions pages project subpage, making it easier for project members to counter bad arguements against the deletion of bad suggestions without changing the speedy deletion criteria. -- Gordon Ecker 23:55, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

DE's idea about allowing Suggestion Masters (or whatever...) to delete suggestions on sight, or to delete those pages if uncontested by another Suggestion Master, would work, IMO. I'm trying to avoid big discussions (between SMs and everyone) as that would slow this entire process to a crawl, and then become useless given how many suggestions are presented daily. Erasculio 01:23, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

Would it? How many of the suggestion deletion proposals made by Backsword, Terra Xin and myself have been overturned? How many have been contested at all? If we prevented anonymous suggestions, how many people would register just to post bad suggestions? On average, how many deleted bad suggestions would it take before a registered user stops posting them? -- Gordon Ecker 03:35, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

Removal

I know we've responded to this with "as long as we have developers, we'll have suggestions", but I think we need to look further into the prospect of removing the suggestion pages altogether. This is becoming uncomfortably similar to GuildWiki's builds section; quite a few suggestions at first on some talk pages, eventually growing as more people saw these suggestions and therefore decided to make suggestions of their own, moving these suggestions to an off-shoot page, moving them all to a specialised area and re-enforcing the idea of "any suggestions welcome", getting to the situation where that area has spiralled out of control. We have our very own builds section. We're even proposing similar solutions to what was proposed on GuildWiki -- GuildWiki:Builds wipe#Reasoning shows just how similar these beginnings, growths, and effects are. Now, I'm not saying that we have to follow the same route just because GuildWiki did, but the similarities between the two sections aren't exactly something we should put behind us -- I think it's useful that we have GuildWiki to look at in order to look for our solution.

As mentioned though, "as long as we have developers, we'll have suggestions". However, I don't think that's entirely the case -- as I explained, the number of suggestions increased as it became clearer to people that suggestions were welcome and abundant, especially as it was encouraged (rather, not discouraged) by Gaile, for one. If we took a stance of showing clearly that we don't have the capabilities to hold suggestions, and so we discourage them, I doubt that we'd go back into the situation we are in now. If people start posting suggestions on an ArenaNet contributor's talk page, we tell them that we do not hold suggestions on the wiki and explain why; if the ArenaNet contributor also agrees to this, we might not follow those old footsteps and restart catering for suggestions. We probably will get a few suggestions at first, but that, in addition to the discouragement of suggestions in order to prevent an increase, is preferable to what we have now. -- Brains12 \ talk 00:25, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

User_talk:Emily_Diehl#ArenaNet_and_the_namespace? — Poki#3 00:38, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

Can you elaborate on that? -- Brains12 \ talk 00:45, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

I don't think that the benefits of eliminating suggestions would outweigh the drawbacks, I think we just need to prevent good suggestions from being lost in a sea of bad ones, and I believe we're making progress. Some editors are salvaging some bad suggestion pages and tagging others for deletion. There are some proposals to discourage bad suggestions, such as the ones on the proposed skill feedback page formatting guideline's talk page. -- Gordon Ecker 01:08, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

(EC) I agree completely with removing suggestions, but I think the main problem for that idea are the Arena Net contributors - they would have to either state themselves that suggestions are not allowed, or to allow others to edit their talk pages in order to remove said suggestions, and likely have to deal with the complains. IMO, that makes this issue go from just a wiki matter to an Arena Net community relations matter, and one hard to solve.

The discussion on Emily page may lead to a good result, but to say the truth I'm not too fond of how it was started - I feel that questions such as "Do the pages actually serve a purpose with ArenaNet? Or do they exist solely to 'make people happy'?" and "Will some suggestions (especially the GW2 suggestions) be implemented in Guild Wars (or Guild Wars 2)?" simply cannot be given a "no" as that would infuriate the community. Seeking more palatable ways of phrasing these concerns would have been better, but even then it would be hard to find a way of allowing Arena Net to say that suggestions here are not helpful without angering all those making suggestions. Erasculio 01:13, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

Does anyone seriously believe that there are any ideas to be found in the suggestions for which ANet goes "wow, that's a great idea, how come we didn't think of that?" Okay, maybe one or two, but really they just end up being an airing of peoples' preferences. Hardly scientific nor meaningful, and just a big mess. Has this game really been shaped by specific suggestions that have been made for skills or the game in general, and likewise does anyone think that what GW2 ends up being will have been influenced by the suggestions people leave in any significant way. [I for one, mostly hope not.] At least when the ideas/suggestions being posted are for builds, they can be tested and somewhat objectively evaluated; but, how could that even be done if we wanted to for a game for which we know so little about. The suggestions we're discussing are basically ideas and it would seem that someone must have announced a prize for coming up with most ideas for the "brainstorming suggestion contest the GW wiki was holding". I would be okay with discontinuing the gathering of suggestions, whether it be by eliminating the pages for gathering them, or by putting a time limit on them and deleting them at the end of that. For example, we could create a GW2 suggestion page for the week beginning Aug. 24th with the understanding that all GW2 suggestions could be added that week; ANet would have that week and the next to view, print or ignore them as they chose; and it would be deleted at the end of the following week. Of course, if my understanding is correct, even deleted page continue to be stored. So really this has just become an endeavor to see how many storage resources we can waste. And, no matter how cheap storage becomes, should we really be being that wasteful for no good reason? -- Inspired to ____ 01:45, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

It's not so much a space-saving/wasting issue as it is a maintainability, manageability, enforceability, and usefulness issue; it may also be a case of whether we should be doing the work of ArenaNet by gathering suggestions for them. -- Brains12 \ talk 01:50, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

Nevertheless, the only reason to keep/have them here is because we can (or almost can). Furthermore, absent any evidence to the contrary, I would say that the reason they were ever maintained was because of wiki rules against deleting discussion page comments with maybe a slight pinch of trying to give users the impression that they were being listened to. -- Inspired to ____ 02:10, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

There aren't any hard rules against deleting discussion pages -- some non-important talk pages with no lasting information or consensus which could be used in future might be deleted; it basically depends on how useful they are. I'd say it's more ArenaNet trying to appease the playerbase, rather than wiki rules. Whether or not that's the case is what the questions linked above are trying to find out, but I wouldn't say that's a too far-fetched assumption (however, as Erasculio says, I doubt ArenaNet could confirm that).-- Brains12 \ talk 02:23, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

Honestly, I doubt that any of the good suggestions are original. IMO the main advantage of a wiki over forums in this situation is that a wiki can be used to organize information in a clearer and more concise manner. IMO Inspired's temperary brainstorming page suggestion would be pointless, as forums are more suitable for that type of thing. -- Gordon Ecker 03:27, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

Semi-agree...except that I don't think forums are really suited for that any better. Regardless of mine or anyone elses ideas, it's just more of the same...suggestions...and suggestions for anything other then policy improvements or how to better present information in an article DO NOT belong in a wiki. Really, the only good place for suggestions is in a suggestion box where the interested party can take them out, look at them, and then either implement them or ignore as they see fit. Thus, if ANet really wants to get suggestions from their users all they really need is an email address set up and advertised just to receive user suggestions. -- Inspired to ____ 03:50, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

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know i have not read this hole page but i think its a good thing to have the suggestion pages. i know there a mess but i think that's because the system as it is right now is more complex then it needs to be. i think the hole point of having the suggestion pages in the first place was so people wouldn't be using gailes talk page as one which it did turn into. also my main concern would be that people who were used to useing those pages would feel like anet dose not want user feed back at all which i think would send a very bad message to the community. but i do know that its very hard for the people who are in charge to manage them... i think if you had a category system which had sub categorys would be the best way of going about it. the gw2 suggestion page is overly confusing with the scratch pad. i know i have more to say on this subject but alas its 3:06 am here so i need to go to sleep and cant think right now... so also sorry if what i wrote dose not make any scene.75.172.43.90 10:08, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

I think we should wait for an official response before we make any drastic changes to the way we handle suggestion pages. -- Gordon Ecker 10:14, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

We already use categories to sort all the Guild Wars 2 suggestions by subject. The scratch pad isn't meant to be used -- that just contains the old suggestions which haven't yet been moved to the correct location. Also, it's not our job to handle part of ArenaNet's community relations and say "they're listening, they really are -- here's a large sandbox to prove it!" As Inspired says, if ArenaNet wish to compile suggestions, an email system would work better than a wiki. -- Brains12 \ talk 13:29, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

Before answering, I have a question: Are you talking about the Guild Wars 1/2 Suggestion pages (and the skill suggestions) only? Or rather the complete content of the ANet namespace? poke | talk 13:40, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

I think the skill feedback pages could be kept if people wanted, as they are contained - there is a finite number of skills, so the section is not going to growth beyond that number. The Guild Wars suggestions pages, both for GW1 and GW2, are IMO the main priority for removal. Erasculio 13:45, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

I'd prefer to remove the skill feedback pages too... while the number of skills is limited, the amount of suggestions are not, and the amount of flame-inducing comments are not. The skill feedback pages are the same as the suggestions pages, if not worse. -- Brains12 \ talk 13:48, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

Fine by me (it's going to give more trouble in the beginning, as people would likely continue to discuss the skills but now on their articles, but that would fade in time). I suggest we keep the bugs section (since it is used by contributors and Arena Net all the time, and it's not hard to manage) and the website suggestions article (it's small, Arena Net asked for those suggestions, and so far it has not been hard to manage). Erasculio 13:53, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

if the scratch pad isnt meant to be used then why is it there? and thus my point as to the gw2 suggestion pages are to complicated. also the gw1 suggestion page was never changed to be more user friendly or to promote better organization, so in that regard you guys didn't even try. also regardless of getting rid of them you are going to have it so people will post suggestions for things in weird places, and over all your going to have more of a messy wiki then you did before. i also think the skill suggestion pages are perfect because they take the focus off of izzy's talk page and are manageable there is nothing you can do to stop the flames or trolling there just isn't that's how the internet is, so getting rid of them for that reason is invalid. 75.172.43.90 21:48, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

The scratchpad is there so other people can still see those suggestions, or can move them to a more appropriate place. I think most of us would agree that the wiki was less messy when we didn't have all these suggestion pages, and I doubt we'd become more messy if we let people know we don't allow suggestions (therefore stopping things from getting messy). "This is the internet" is almost never a valid argument, I'm afraid -- I think it's safe to assume that if we get rid of the skill feedback pages, there won't be flaming or trolling on those pages; as normal skill article talk pages are watched by more people than the skill feedback pages are, it's likely the former will be less troublesome than the latter are at the moment. -- Brains12 \ talk 22:40, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

I don't think a "suggestion wipe" is going to do anyone any good. While the situation does eerily look like the builds section, keep in mind that there are two large differences: First we have the Anet dev team here, and, as long as they maintain their presence here, we can never, ever, truly purge the crap that is spewed at them. Second, after the builds wipe; a branch of Gwiki was formed: PvX. With PvX, people has a place to vent off their builds. This place won't have a "SuggestionsWiki", so people will (naturally) vent off their suggestions here.

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Solution? If we don't create a "Anetwiki" (I guess... we won't) we're not going to be able to keep the suggestions off this wiki. People simply will come. So deletion of that section is not the way. Nor would a vetting system work (never does, because there are simply too much shit to mauled around). The "Suggestion Masters" thing would be a better way to go. Select a team of level headed people, and give them full sovereign authority to nuke suggestions without anyone second-guessing them, and the problem goes away. -- NUKLEAR IIV 08:57, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

I don't think it would be necessary to create a formal suggestion moderator position with editorial authority. Suggestion project regulars could easily form an informal "suggestion cabal" and outweight the keep side in most bad suggestion deletion discussions. If someone manages to get broad support for their obviously bad suggestion by calling in friends, it can be brought up in RFC. I don't think we should consider concensus-trumping editorial authority unless the failure of both of the first two options becomes a common occurance, and even then, I think such authority should only be exercised as a last resort. -- Gordon Ecker 09:23, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

I disagree. If we aren't going to delete everything, I'd like to see people with the right state of mind with the ability to delete the bad suggestions. Long discussions are long; bored people get bored. If the system allows this situation -- "If someone manages to get broad support for their obviously bad suggestion by calling in friends" -- the system isn't doing so well. If the system relies on a cabal and strength in numbers to win a discussion, the system isn't doing so well. The loudest voice is not supposed to prevail when what they're arguing for is "obviously bad". Considering the large amount of rubbish that goes through the suggestion pages, I doubt discussions are the best way to get rid of them, considering how it often is the loudest voice winning (amount of people making bad suggestions > the people trying to clear the up). The major points you've outlined above, Gordon, are how things are dealt with now -- people tag for deletion, people oppose, people discuss. Relying on strength of numbers in an obvious case to out-voice the opposing side isn't a good idea for any proposal. -- Brains12 \ talk 11:31, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

Select a team of level headed people, and give them full sovereign authority to nuke suggestions without anyone second-guessing them, and the problem goes away. -- NUKLEAR IIV 12:01, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

Nukear's idea above would work, but I would rather still try to see if we could just delete all of it. IMO, it would be possible to do so as long as the Arena Net staff were willing to do it, either by deleting the suggestions on their talk pages themselves or allowing people to do so for them. If they do not wish to do that (as it would likely cause some friction with the community), then I think Nuklear's idea is the way to go, thanks to what Brains said above. Erasculio 12:16, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

I'll quote Myself:I don't think a "suggestion wipe" is going to do anyone any good. While the situation does eerily look like the builds section, keep in mind that there are two large differences: First we have the Anet dev team here, and, as long as they maintain their presence here, we can never, ever, truly purge the crap that is spewed at them. Second, after the builds wipe; a branch of Gwiki was formed: PvX. With PvX, people has a place to vent off their builds. This place won't have a "SuggestionsWiki", so people will (naturally) vent off their suggestions here. Deleting that section isn2t going to work. If anything, it'll just scatter the problem around.

I'd also like to point out that the issue with Izzy's talk and feedback pages are very much alike this issue, and the solution that comes up here (most likely) will also apply to those issues. -- NUKLEAR IIV 13:44, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

I'd love to nuke the suggestions, but sadly, even if we wanted to, it'd be foolish to do that at this point in time. User talk:Emily Diehl#ArenaNet and the namespace. We should, at the very least, wait for answers there. Calor 15:21, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

While waiting, we can still talk about it I guess. To NuclearVII and all in favor of the rather ridiculous "Suggestions Master", I'd like to point out one thing: Does anyone of you think users will stop bitching when told that they're not supposed to bitch about a "Suggestions Master" decision?

Anyone notice how people still bitch on PvX wiki despite having Build Masters? The point is not about whether people bitch. The point is whether or not the person that caused the bitching really should be bitched at or not, and whether he/she should care about the bitching or not. Does anyone notice that despite being given discretion to act as they see fit for the good of the wiki, sysops are still getting bitched at? See any similarity here? If I delete a suggestions page as per the {{delete}} reason, and someone bitches about it at me, I'd probably bitch back (but in a nicer way) about why I deleted it and why I'm not going to bother undeleting it. They can have fun bitching at me until they get the support of several other users behind them or until they give a really strong reason. -- ab.er.rant 16:35, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

Thing is, Ab. (may I call you Ab?), The build masters work for PvX. YOur way of handling things, while much more humane and (suffice it to say) civilised, simply not going to cut it, and we know that from the builds section.

Yes, people are going to bitch at Suggestion Masters. But the said suggestion master will also be empowered to point out why that said suggestion was deleted, moved, or rewritten. Chances are, 90% of the bitching (at least reasonable bitching) will stop there. On a related note, I don't think sysops are getting seriously bitched at. Serious bitching is serious business.

As I see it, the bottomline is: There is way too much of it, so trying to filter stuipidity is pointless. -- NUKLEAR IIV 16:57, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

(EC) It's the "until they get the support of several other users behind them" that is the problem in your reasoning, IMO. Not to mention that sure, sysops get complained at, but imagine how much worse (and how many more complains we would have) if if it were just common users doing sysop-like actions. Replying to a complain saying that you have been invested with the authority to do something and the person complaining has not is a much faster and easier way to deal with empty complains such as the ones being expected against the removal of obviously bad suggestions, no matter how many users are complaining. That kind of safeguard is not going to solve all the problems about people bitching, but it's enough to lessen them. In other news, I agree with Nuklear above. Erasculio 16:59, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

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The "suggestion master" idea seems to be based on the arguement that concensus-trumping editorial authority is necessary in order to get bad suggestions deleted. Based on my observations, bad suggestion pages don't get deleted because people generally don't try to get them deleted, whenever someone has tried to get a bad suggestion page deleted, it has been deleted, which, IMO, completely refutes that claim. -- Gordon Ecker 00:26, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

As Gordon said. (yes Nuke, you can) The old builds section is unlike the suggestions section in that the users who post them usually don't come back to check - and I'd like to think that's because we don't have a rating system that they have to "pass". Show me an incident that turned into serious bitching for the "suggester" and the "delete-suggester". A suggestion is less likely to garner the strong negative responses as a build, that's why while there have been issues, they have been relatively minor.

Why is "until they get the support of several other users behind them" is a problem? Are you saying that if several users respond and argue credibly for a particular suggestion to be reinstated, they should be ignored over the opinions of a small number of pre-determined users? Why? By what criteria do we measure the value of these suggestions? Why should taste/preference of a small number of users take precedence? These are suggestions and ideas. These are not builds that can be disproved by simple in-game testing. These are thoughts and preferences of the playerbase. These are the things that are valuable to the developers - an insight to how the playerbase thinks, not how a small number of wiki users think. We are not placed here to filter information for ArenaNet. We should only be organising the information, not review and judge ideas that are validly presented and supported. That's why I mentioned "several users". An idea, however silly you may think, if it gets strong enough support, is still an idea. It's a bloody idea, not a bloody fact. We are neither GW2 developers nor GW2 designers; we are not in the position to decide what's workable or not. If enough people seem to present the same idea, we should be documenting that suggestion (since we are documenting suggestions). If you hate a seemingly ridiculous suggestion, type out why you think it won't work and leave it be. We are organisers and observers, not judges. -- ab.er.rant 02:16, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

(EC, kinda) Not on the scale being discussed here. Deleting one suggestion once in a while isn't a problem, especially considering that some users don't even know how to find and/or edit their suggestions after submiting them. Deleting all the bad suggestions, in other hand, is likely going to cause more trouble. Besides, trying to prevent an incoming problem through a system that so far appears to have few drawbacks doesn't strike me as something we should avoid.

And Aberrant, we may not be judges, but the wiki is also not a forum, nor a place for suggestions, it's for documenting the game. Plus, it's under the control of the community, not under Arena Net's service. If they want to make some "official" place for suggestions and judge what they consider to be a waste of space or not themselves that's fine, but as long as those suggestions are basically uncontrolled spam in the community-controlled wiki, I think it's up to us to remove everything that is obvious trash. Erasculio 02:23, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Tht's contradictory. While I've stated my preference that they don't really belong here. If the wiki is going to keep them, then keep them. That means documenting that the suggestion was made to have some feature or aspect in a future game. Okay, maybe if it's so outrageous or already been stated that it won't exist, delete it. But, otherwise just document that it was made. What is your concern, or what is the downside, with simply doing that? -- Inspired to ____ 02:34, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Mostly, the suggestions don't really belong here. If they were to be kept here, having so many bad suggestions would make it inviable for Arena Net to read everything that has been suggested, and therefore not only would the entire section become pointless, but also the good suggestions would be lost among the bad ones. Erasculio 02:48, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Agreed. I'm not disputing that. I have no problems deleting "uncontrolled spam" and "obvious trash". That is why I believe the current system kinda works. I delete those I agree should be deleted. Those who are against can come complain and argue for why it should be undeleted if they can be bothered to. I simply feel that any group of dedicated "reviewers" will simply turn the suggestions into a "GW2 suggestions as reviewed by so-and-so section", and not a "GW2 suggestions section". -- ab.er.rant 02:31, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

It's pretty clear to me also that certain users are trying to turn the messed up suggestion pages into a : "these suggestions have passed the GW user vetting and are suggestions which should therefore be implemented pages." And, that is neither something which this wiki can nor should be attempting. -- Inspired to ____ 02:41, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Agreed with Ab.er.rant - the section about : that any group of dedicated "reviewers" will simply turn the suggestions into a "GW2 suggestions as reviewed by so-and-so section", and not a "GW2 suggestions section". A sysop likely has way more capacity to help than just sit around and moderate stuff. An occassional look is fine, but I do believe this place needs more watchers...--People of Antioch 02:41, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

(EC) Hence why the discussion has shifted from a vetting system into just allowing people to delete the "obvious trash" and helping them to do so by formalizing that role. Hopefully it will make the job of deleting all the bad stuff faster, given the rate it is added to the wiki. Erasculio 02:48, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

The obvious problem, but also without the need for it, is the deleting. No one clearly wants to spend a lot of time categorizing and otherwise dealing with what you call "obvious trash", but why be concerned with getting them deleted. Unless, there is a concern by someone that the "obvious trash" would be implemented, they would only need to be moved to some form of a "miscellaneous" or "other" category where they would still exist to document that the suggestion was made; and yet, be out of the way. Along those lines, there has not been a significant problem before with "archiving" anything on this or other wikis. -- Inspired to ____ 03:01, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Basically what I have said days ago above: "Not to delete stuff (at least not in the beginning), but rather to list those 'accepted' suggestions in a main page and push everything else to a more hidden area"? However, what would be the point of keeping what has been stated as being "trash"? Without any categorization it would become just a big pile of unreadable text, and then would be pratically the same as deleted, only cluttering the wiki. Erasculio 03:07, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Except that's my point of getting rid of them all...The only reason to keep any of them is an assumption by some that ArenaNet is "out and about" looking for user suggestions on what to do in GW2. If that's actually true, they'll find them where ever we push them to; if it's not, it won't matter if we keep any of them. -- Inspired to ____ 03:12, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

P.S. I hope they aren't looking and ignore them all because I seriously doubt any decent game was ever made by basing it on user suggestions. [Anyone who's ever been in a PUG knows this truism: "most users are idiots"] -- Inspired to ____ 03:19, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Don't look at me, I both want to get rid of all suggestions and want Arena Net to ignore all of them, too. Erasculio 03:25, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Good! So, who was it again that wanted GW2 to dumbed down by the stupid user suggestions we are maintaining for it? -- Inspired to ____ 03:32, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

i would just like to point out Anet Hasn't always made the best decisions a few skills which will not be named come to mind. which also points how how subjective this is.75.172.43.90 03:34, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

So, the general consensus is the total annihilation of the suggestion pages?

I can live with that, but history repeats itself, eh? -- NUKLEAR IIV 11:02, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

How can you call this a consensus? Your "consensus" is based on a handful number of people from the wiki; this topic/the whole page is too cluttered to actually get people read this and this topic is not even on RFC as well. It is not that easy to get rid of such a big number of pages just by that.

Apart from that personally I would like to keep the suggestion pages if ANet states here that the pages are any use to them; it doesn't matter to me how much they actually use them then, as long as they really say that they are helpful in any way. poke | talk 14:21, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

...Again with the caveat that Arena Net is is a hard place, as it would be unlikely that they could say with all the letters that this part of the wiki is useless after so many people have posted their suggestions. IMO that's why it's important to consider carefully what they say - if they claim the section is slightly useful but they never really use it and so this kind of thing would be more suited for fanforums, I believe that's enough room to delete everything, as that's likely the closest to "it's trash" we could get them to say. Erasculio 14:33, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

(Reset indent)

Agreed. I'm also curious how a wiki for the benefit of users has gotten involved in wondering about if something has a benefit to ArenaNet. Should we really be making content decisions on whether something is "helpful in any way" to Arenanet? A lot of changes should be made around here if helpfullness to ArenaNet is a factor. Anyway, whatever... -- Inspired to ____ 16:32, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

If ArenaNet implements a good suggestion, players benefit. I think we should wait for an official statement on whether the devs think the non-skill suggestion pages are great and should stay as they are, would be more useful if they were cleaned up and focused more on suggestion quality or are completely unsalvageable before we make any dramatic changes to the way suggestions are handled, and that such change proposals should be proposed as guidelines, policies or policy revisions before being implemented. -- Gordon Ecker 02:27, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Ab.er.rant makes a good distinction between PvX wiki. The suggestions are the people's ideas and perspectives about what they would like to see in the game, and the wiki incorporates everyone's input with the use of "why this is a good/bad idea" sections so that the result is an easily readable idea that has been looked at from the inside out. If an idea is inherently stupid or unreasonable (like futuristic weapons or invisibility), but it has been edited for clarity and it hasn't been suggested before, then it's really not our place as a contributor to decide whether it's good enough for the developers to read through. Of course, developers don't have the time to read every single suggestion and we should accommodate those restrictions by limiting what gets suggested by making it less simple to create suggestions (like Backsword's idea).

I already get bitched for the edits and deletion tags that I make to other people's suggestions; ranging from "This is MY idea, not yours" to "you're just being biased". Nuclear's suggestion wouldn't increase the amount of bitching that suggestion masters would get, I'm evidence of that. :) I'm not trying to pitch, some of us already do most of the stuff that Nuclear has outlined, but not as quickly as desired.

I also like the idea of presenting or promoting ideas that are unanimously considered to be "great" or "much needed" for GW2. We currently have this on the main GW2 suggestions page (it's only a few lines), but if there are any improvements to that, I think it would help reduce the repetitive load. Even if we get a policy that can separate properly written ideas from poorly written ones, at least then we can cull the ideas that are seemingly unrealistic to one side, and have all of the plausible ones to another side without deleting any of them unnecessarily.

Finally, removing the suggestions pages altogether is a bad idea. They were created to help (and I stress that word) ensure that suggestions are collected and stored in one place. If there is no place to make suggestions, then the contributors will post them on developer's talk pages and make more clutter than intended. I hope this helps. (Terra Xin 03:20, 6 September 2008 (UTC))

arbitrary section header

That is an awesome amount of text up there, parts of which I have only scimmed over. So I might do injustice to someone, but: Why do all proposals to change the suggestions pages focus on having some vetting, voting, some "suggestions dictators" or doing away with the section as a whole? To be more specific, I miss the most obvious change: Turn the suggestions section into real wiki pages. Since we are on a wiki and not a forum or other web page, why not use the advantages of a wiki? In my mind, the problem stems to the biggest part from the notion that a suggestion can not be substancially changed, except the original author. That leads to tons of really bad suggestions and it is also decidedly unwiki. If we do away with the forum like mentality of not chaning someone else's edits and go back to a wiki mentality of vicious editing of other's contributions the problem might disappear (and part of it moved to the talk pages, where it does not interfere with readability for ANet). --Xeeron 10:07, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

And this suggestion nicely fits in to Backsword's proposal to do away with easy page creation. -- ab.er.rant 11:58, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

There's the concern of if the wiki should have a suggestions section or if that's something better left for other kind of media, if the suggestions here do have a purpose at all or not, etc. One of the concerns, IMO, isn't whether people should edit the suggestions or not (that was already discussed and the result appears to be that editing suggestions is allowed), rather the high number of suggestions that cannot be salvaged even with heavy editing. Backsword's idea is a good one, but it may be summed into "let's get less suggestions" - removing everything is just an extreme over that idea (and for the records, I'm happy with the new header since now we get TOC back, it was rather annoying to have to scroll through the wall of text above). Erasculio 13:17, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

If we treat the suggestions pages as normal wiki pages (unlike talk pages or forums), what stops you from slapping the general delete tag on subpages and deleting them 3 days later if noone disagrees? --Xeeron 13:58, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

PS: I saw quite a lot of deletion tags already on subpages. As such, it looks to me as if normal wiki procedures are taking care of the problem already, without the need for much additional regulation.

IMO, the current state of things is not enough to solve the problem. We have so many bad suggestions being added constantly that deleting them three days after they have been tagged becomes not only almost inviable (see all suggestions that have been tagged more than three days ago) but also a reactive measure, while ideally we would rely on active and preventive measures. Giving people the authority to delete a suggestion immediately instead of just tagging it for deletion three days later would speed things up without making any big changes to the status quo; Backsword's idea linked above is a good example of a preventive measure, but the biggest preventive action (and IMO the best) would be to just delete everything. Erasculio 14:30, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Deleting is not really a preventive action... Apart from that removing the createbox requires the suggestion creators to at least think a bit, and that is a requirement that should always be there. Deleting something directly after it was added doesn't help as people won't learn from that. They'll simply think "oh the page is gone *recreating*" and exactly that should be avoided. poke | talk 16:55, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

I meant deleting as removing the entire suggestions section; then it would be the biggest possible preventive measure : P Erasculio 17:26, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

I've written up a skill feedback page formatting guideline proposal designed for collaborative editing at Guild Wars Wiki:Formatting/Skill feedback pages, and have started a proposal at Guild Wars Wiki talk:One-revert rule#Explicitly cover all pages which would make the reversion policy explicitly cover all pages. -- Gordon Ecker 23:29, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Some of us are already editing the pages under the umbrella of this wiki mentality, and have been doing so since the suggestion pages were first set up. It's not really something worth discussing, unless you want to start a movement to inform people that the wiki isn't a forum, which would be great! :) (Terra Xin 02:27, 6 September 2008 (UTC))

Wiki down time

Per Emily's talk page "wiki currently undergoes it's nightly DB backup at 2:05 GMT, which is followed by a DB optimization at 4:10 GMT". Do we want to post a notice (eg site notice), or? Dominator Matrix 02:01, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

It's not total downtime, is it? (I expect we'll see in a couple of minutes.) Anyway, as it's every night, it's probably not user/visitor-friendly to have a sitenotice for every night, and it's kinda unnecessary to keep it up for just a couple of days if it is every night... perhaps just a message on the portal or something would do. -- Brains12 \ talk 02:05, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

It is technically total downtime as you can't edit, its read only. On the portal or in the FAQ would be nice. Dominator Matrix 02:39, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

Total downtime would imply that you can't access anything. No writing or reading, at all. Not being able to edit, but still being able to read, is just partial downtime. (Aiiane - talk - contribs) 11:26, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

By the way, how long does this downtime last? (I assume it's not 2.05-4.10; I figure those are just two separate times when those two things occur.) -- Brains12 \ talk 13:34, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

Stay up and watch. On a bad night, up to an hour on either (I recall that happening about a week ago). Calor 14:44, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

"Stay up and watch".. Yea, it's like 4 and 6am here (3 and 5 for Pling). Very likely. ;) - anja 16:16, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

I wouldn't put it past Pling. Or get up early. Calor 16:20, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

Considering my first post in this section was at 02:05 UTC (i.e. 03:05 here), I wouldn't put it past me either.-- Brains12 \ talk 17:09, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

So stay up until a bit bast three to see the hiccup, go to sleep, then get up at five a day later. Calor 20:11, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

Or come home early from a good party and you might be able to see the DB optimization.. poke | talk 20:38, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

^^ Calor 21:36, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

Admin Discretion on "Volatile" Talk Pages

I know this was a very largely discussed topic however I don't think it was resolved and I think some admin are overstepping their authority in relation to this matter. Admin are no more able to decide if a comment made by someone else is allowed to remain on a page than I am and recent admin activity on the wiki, specifically by Brains12, has shown some admin have interpreted their discretion to allow them to do this. While I think it is a good thing that brains has tried to deal with these pages, the way he has gone about it is contrary to sysop policy. In particular "This status is not intended to represent extra weight within community decisions or generally directing the wiki". Discretion in deleting vandalism or dealing with a problem user might be fine, but what belongs on a wiki talk page is clearly not left up to the discretion of a sysop. In the cast of the smiters boon (pvp) talk page topics were moved to the developer feedback talk page which a) belonged on the talk page they came from, and b) didn't belong in the location they were moved to. The justification of sysop discretion does not apply to wiki content outside of vandalism/trolling. If he had chosen to protect the page for a couple days, that would be sysop discretion but removing/moving content would "represent extra weight within the community". Another thing I noticed on his talk page is he is apparently removing content from Izzy's talk pages as he sees fit, deciding what is relevent and what is not. Again, admins don't "represent extra weight", we can't remove comments from talk pages, even if they are ours, let alone someone else's. On Gaile Gray's talk page there are MANY comments made by users in response to questions made by another user targeted at Gaile. Almost every question has been answered by another user, if not several, sometimes even by brains himself, many times users are wrong. I have seen Gaile go as far as to thank both the original poster and the posters to come after them - she appreciates both the question and the feedback of other users. Something posted on the wiki is in the public realm, anyone can read and comment whether they were addressed or not, it is not up to admin to decide this.

I bring this up here because I don't believe brains12 has done something wrong, I believe the way he has done it is wrong. I don't want to revert the changes, I don't want to punish brains12, I want to clarify this is not how admins work. They deal with vandalism and trolling by removing it and they deal with problem users via blocks and bans. They are allowed to delete pages, usually under specific circumstances, but deciding what belongs on a talk page and what doesn't is no more their business than it is mine. If they believe the page will be the subject of misguided comments temp protecting and leaving a note explaining why and where the comments should go is better than using their discretion to "represent extra weight within community decisions" such as the contents of a talk page. I think this point was unresolved and even if no definite resolution can be reached, at least acknowledge there isn't a consensus supporting this kind of admin discretion - and a policy against it. 122.104.161.96 18:31, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Please read the old discussion about that issue here. Most of the things you claim are outside admin discretion are things the community asked the sysops to do, especially moving content to where it belongs; in fact, Isaiah has thanked the users here for doing it. Erasculio 18:37, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Regarding why this isn't a policy yet - it's still an experiment (as someone said in the discussion, "let's wait and see if the system is effective before we 'hard-code' it into policy", which is what we're doing right now). Removing content from those pages that doesn't belong there - including people's opinions about the skill, which is nothing more than a kind of feedback - is part of the goal stated in the discussion linked above, specifically "educating posters that those talk pages are not forums". Erasculio 18:47, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

to op: could you provide more links? i've looked at the issue with smiter's boon. that section is a borderline case as to where it belongs, and as such it might have been best to seperate the initial discussion (or more, comment) from the following. i'd like to know if you're referring to any more cases. - Y0_ich_halt 19:06, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

I don't contend him moving content at all. It was the selection of content he moved I contend. I agree moving (not removing) content which doesn't belong is allowed and should be done - I half suspect you don't need to be a sysop to do it. My problem is some of the content moved was not developer feedback. This presents two problems; 1) It does belong on that page. 2) It doesn't belong on the page he moved it to. There is no point moving content you think doesn't belong to a place it actually doesn't belong - a place which he is actually deleting content from. By backing up his actions with the threat of sysop action against anyone who opposed, he used his power as a sysop to experiment in an area no consensus supports. If this is an experiment I am discussing why I think the methods were bad. I am not trying to say he did something wrong, but rather how he did it was wrong. The more I restate this, the more I get circled into making this an accusation and less about the actions. This is not about Brains, this is about the actions. Discussion about how to use a skill is often a method in which new content is added to skill pages. It has been effectively used by mainspace editors for as long as the wiki has existed. It is not feedback for a developer. Most sysops and users involved in policy/RFA/Election discussions contribute next to nothing in the way of actual wiki content so it's not surprising they are more interested in taking action in an area even when it doesn't belong. I have no problem with most policy related maters most of the time because the scope in which admin and BC are involved with wiki mainspace and developer talk pages other than izzys. I do have a problem when people actually working on the wiki and discussing content related to an article and a skill's usage which is not feedback becomes the fodder of these disputes. I'm going to wait to see more comments from other users before posting again, if at all because in my experience ping pong text matches are fruitless. 122.104.161.96 19:18, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

you're addressing several topics here. first, you're right, you don't need to be sysop to move stuff. second, you said part of the moved content was in the appropriate place. i indirectly agreed to this on User talk:Brains12 by saying it should've been split up, which is still my opinion. then you're talking about him threating with admin power. i still can't find that part anywhere, so please update me on that. i'm going to address the rest of your post later since a)i'm tired b)there's a tv show i wanna watch now :] and c)said rest is partly moving back to stuff i've already addressed, so i've gotta think that over more closely. in the meantime, maybe someone else jumps in and makes a helpful comment. i'll be back in half an hour. - Y0_ich_halt 20:01, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

I believe the threat being referred to is the 'Notice' section, that states that disagreeing with a sysop's discretion will result in a block with no further warning (which incidentally may need further discussion - a notice on a page is utterly insufficient, and there has to be further warning). That said, I think the policy in general is fine, but sysops must be careful what is moved, and where it is moved too, especially with the current harsh wording and policy that prevents a normal (non-sysop) user from moving the content to a potentially more appropriate location. Ale_Jrb (talk) 20:21, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

OP: Sorry, but I don't believe this is a discussion you can find success with. Because a problem has and continues to exist on this wiki with trolling and runaway commenting, and since consensus doesn't exist for a good way to control it, too many are willing to leave it up to sysop discretion. Unfortunately, that leads to this being an unfriendly and overbearing place. So in a misguided attempt to fix an annoying but relatively insignificant thing, this wiki is quickly moving sysops from being trusted members of the community to being managers of the community. As an added effect of this, expect to see the number of sysops increase around here since managing requires a significantly larger number to keep the community in line. Finally, you will get no admission that something that was done was outside of explicit polity, because if it were it should have been recordered on the Guild Wars Wiki:Sysop discretion log or that would be a policy violation in itself. And as you can see there has been nothing of that sort to happen around here. However, I do wish you luck. -- Inspired to ____ 20:33, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

the smiter's boon talk got terrible pretty fast, but what about locking the page..? not all of the comments were inappropriate either but still got moved. no one discuss an article about a skill, that's retarded, those talk pages have always been there for anons to write their opinions without bothering anyone. Noxify's post on izzy's page, what was wrong in that? it shouldn't be up to brains to decide what should be there or not, just cuz the admins doesnt rly have much to do doesn't mean they should play politics and use their powers on different pages cuz they feel like doing so or 3-4 other admins agreed on it being a good idea. zerpha for one helps the wiki with content, policy in some cases doesn't help a thing, it just irritate the ppl u force it on. --Cursed Angel 20:36, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

(Edit conflict) More users are requesting their adminship because the 5 current active sysops are having a little trouble keeing up with the maintenance. Yes, something has been done outside explicit policy, but if you read the admin policy, you'll see that's fine -- if it's challenged, we discuss. And discuss we did. We even reached a consensus (before you say "no we didn't", read the last section of that discussion, and you'll see that consensus was reached). -- Brains12 \ talk 20:40, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

The page was initially locked (i.e. create=sysop protected) after the page was moved to the Anet place and the remnant deleted. I removed the protection so we kept along with what there was consensus for. User_talk:Brains12#About_Izzy.27s_page <-- explanation for removing Noxify's comment. Oh, and believe me -- I'd rather be doing anything but this; I'm not doing it because I'm bored and I want to "play politics". If it's too far-fetched, I want to help the wiki (but as an admin, I think that must mean abuse of power). -- Brains12 \ talk 20:46, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

i think this makes any more comments from me needless for the moment :) - Y0_ich_halt 20:48, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

(RI) I agree with Brains. Plus, I disagree with 122's idea that this would mean a sysop "represent extra weight" within community decisions - IMO, that would have happened if a sysop had told people to shut up because Smiter's Boon is balanced as it is right now, and threatened to block anyone with a different opinion. What has happened - the discussion being moved to the feedback page, and the maintenance on Isaiah's talk page - are things the community discussed here, in the community portal, and in which a consensus was reached, as seen in the link "volatile pages" above. Given how the community asked sysops to manage those pages, Brains is doing exactly what was asked for (something Isaiah thanked he for, by the way). I wish more sysops were doing the same, since often he's the one receiving the criticism from users who have not understood this change yet. Erasculio 21:26, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

I don't understand how you see it both ways. Either in doing the discussed things, sysops are only doing something that every user can do or they aren't. And if they are doing something every user can do, you don't need to ask sysops to do it and we don't need more sysops to do it, you and other users can just do it. Finally, no one needs to be told that they are just following consensus. Either point out the policy they are following or it's really just a crap way of saying someone is violating policy but not really because it was decided they could. If it's an unwritten policy, or a policy has been changed with consensus for it, please write it down so everyone can have their say in disagreeing or changing it if they want. And if it's not, then please stop acting like it is. -- Inspired to ____ 22:09, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

@122.104.161.96 I have to take serious offense to your claim that "Most sysops and users involved in policy/RFA/Election discussions contribute next to nothing in the way of actual wiki content..." Most of the users involved in policy/RFA/Election discussions are the people who have made the most contributions to actual wiki content. If you were really concerned with "actual wiki content" you wouldn't be spending your time crying about a process that is already showing tangible results on pages that were previously totally non functional, but would be actually registering a username and adding content and becoming a user that participates in the processes you are now maligning. -- Wyn 22:23, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

(EC) Unwritten policy, not written yet because, as mentioned above, "let's wait and see if the system is effective before we 'hard-code' it into policy". More importantly, things often are way too slow here - the discussion about changing the guidelines for the skill feedback pages have apparently died thanks to apathy, for example, and is likely going to take weeks, if not months, to be finished. Here, in this case, the community had made a decision that was considered as something that would improve the wiki - having to wait in order to implement it just so we could officialize a consensus that is already there is IMO a waste, as the wiki only benefits from having this implemented while the policy is still being created. Not to say that the policy is not needed - it is, but waiting until we find the perfect wording before actually improving all those pages isn't necessary. Erasculio 22:27, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

@Inspired. I would like to ask you who you think is asking for 'more moderation on volatile pages' and who is asking for 'suggestion pages to be monitored and cleaned up'? It certainly isn't the admins, we have enough to do with basic daily maintenance. While the initial idea that was proposed and has now been archived, was put forth by Auron who was at the time a seated bureacrat, if you read through the walls of text that were written in response you will see that all the calls for 'more moderation' and 'better clean up' were made by the users themselves. For a long time the sysops allowed things to take their normal path, and it lead to Izzy's page being nothing but trash talk, and garbage being dumped at such a high rate that Izzy himself stopped even trying to comment on anything. If you notice, now that sysops have stepped up and taken action he is once again responding to things. So yes, there are going to be more sysops, and there is going to be more 'management' but it's not because it's what the admins want... it's because it's what the community has asked for. If every single action taken had to rely on a written policy (which often take months if not longer to get written, discussed, agreed upon, and implemented) absolutely nothing would ever happen. -- Wyn 23:42, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

It doesn't matter who asked for it. I have no more time for "I was just following orders" then I have for "do what I say or you'll be blocked". I also could care less about Izzy's page. There is absolutely no good reason why he couldn't deal with his own page before (if he just wasn't willing to then he probably shouldn't have a user page here). Many other users have been subject to vandalism and personal attacks, and have reported them and dealt with it. And, if Izzy doesn't like sysops or anyone else deleting things off his user page now, he can likewise deal with it himself. What is wrong and sure to completely ruin this wiki is this concept that only sysops can determine if something needs to be removed from a page. When sysops put themselves or allow themselves to be put into a position of deciding what is allowable content, the concept of the wiki is irrepairably damaged. It also will naturally continue even further down this same slippery slope and it has actually already been proposed that sysops (or another new class of sysops) should judge which suggestions are wiki worthy. This is not a good direction which this wiki is heading. -- Inspired to ____ 00:41, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

One more thing...Auron's comment, which I mostly agree with in concept, was based on the wiki not being a forum. Interestingly, that has now been twisted by some into the wiki needs moderators. -- Inspired to ____ 00:49, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm not against anyone being allowed to remove content from one of the pages in question here; what I don't believe would work is to have anyone being able to remove or add content, given how those whose content has been removed would likely try to place it back. Erasculio 01:14, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

@Inspired. One of the basic concepts behind busy, successful forums is moderation, so as long as this wiki has to have 'forum like' areas, like the suggestion and feedback pages, we will have to have some form of moderation. As for Izzy, as an Anet employee, I believe he is required to have some sort of userpage here. He has admitted to the world he is not a good wiki editor, and also dealing with his page is a very low priority for him in comparison to the other things he is doing. None of this would be necessary if people read and followed the rules of the wiki, not treating it like a forum, not using talk pages of articles to vent their displeasure (or in few cases, pleasure) over a skill change, not attacking other members of the community. But since we don't live in that world, some form of authority needs to be established. I'm truly amazed that you can't see that. Any member of the community is welcome to ask for the removal of content, in fact I believe that several have begun tagging suggestions for deletion. Any member of the community is also welcome to open a Request for Adminship (RfA). Any member of the community is welcome to propose changes to policies. It's all based on what the community as a whole, or at least of those willing to participate in the process that make the decisions. If you feel so strongly that this HAS to be written into policy NOW, then do it, write the proposal, and place it up for the community to discuss. I think you will find it achieves consensus fairly quickly based on the proven results. Of course, I wouldn't expect it to be approved exactly as you write it, people will want changes to reflect more clarity in wording here, or a better stated intent there. That's how it works. But to sit here and bad mouth those that have earned the trust of the community enough to be given the tools and the discretion to do the maintenance and moderation that keeps this wiki running is just a sheer waste of everyone's time. Stop being part of the problem, and become part of the solution.-- Wyn 01:22, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Nothing new in that...don't think I haven't realized that by criticizing the way something is being done, I would be labeled as "part of the problem". That's fine because all you need to know is that all I am trying to do see if there is a way I personally can justify contributing in a significant way to documenting on this wiki a game which spend a quite a bit of time playing. Unfortunately, that has been almost completely determined in the negative at this point; and even worse, I worry that this same situation will now be extending to the GW2 wiki. -- Inspired to ____ 01:42, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

No, it's not the criticizing that is a problem, it the criticizing without offering alternative solutions that is. Not positively contributing is the problem. Only focusing on other's actions is the problem. People seem to think this stuff just happens, that pages get cleaned up, that bad images disappear, that vandals and trolls just go away, that all this fabulous content just appears out of thin air. It really takes a lot of people working together to get it all done. A lot of that maintenance and clean up is left in the hands of the sysops. How many people do you think there actually are that use this wiki? We have just under 37,000 registered users, and probably at least double that non registered users. We've had 91 new pages added just today. Yet we have 4 active sysops. That is the problem. -- Wyn 03:04, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Much of what your talking about has nothing to do with sysops. Just look at the recent block log and the deletion log and it would seem apparent that a couple sysops should be able to handle it. Especially when you consider how many of the deletions relate to GW2 suggestions which again do not belong here. And, at the same time that you feel it necessary to argue that there are not enough sysops, you want this wiki to "have some form of moderation" with sysops performing it. Only thing left for me to says is....NUTS! -- Inspired to ____ 03:31, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

"it would seem apparent that a couple sysops should be able to handle it" - and do you know what exactly these sysops think about their low number? Did you ask them? Did you even think about how it is to divide 24h by 6 people, where the timezone is nearly the same for 4 of them? Please don't just say those are enough when you actually have no idea about it. The other sysops are great, especially Pling, with enforcing that on the volatile talk pages, is doing a great job despite being flamed again and again on his talk page because people cannot read. I, for my part, love the wiki; the first and the last thing I do each day is checking it, and I am online as often as I can. However there are parts of the wiki I cannot look at, and the other sysops cannot do it either.

Actually that we have to discuss this topic again after spending 157KiB of talk alone in the archive (and a lot more on this page and on other pages) really annoys me; Why can single people just not understand that it doesn't help to begin a discussion over and over again after a solution was accepted by consensus of the community? Do you even know how many time discussing this does even cost to participate while the people involved in this enforcement (=Izzy) were already really grateful about it? poke | talk 07:15, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

(Reset indent) @122.104.161.96: "Most sysops and users involved in policy/RFA/Election discussions contribute next to nothing in the way of actual wiki content" Ouch... you might want to research a little before spouting off something like that :(

As for your concerns, they are valid. Please do not feel threatened that you cannot contest admin decision. Bring it to the admin in question or to another admin. As for comparing it to Gaile's page, Gaile's talk page is actually less problematic. Also, it should be noted that neither Gaile nor users on Gaile's page has requested for something like this. We didn't barge in. A problem was presented, and a solution applied. Granted, the solution is far from perfect, but at least it's got some results. Again, if you think something was removed which should not be, discuss it with Brains or another admin (nicely of course ;).

@Inspired: From your previous comments, I'm getting the feeling that you don't realise that GWW:ADMIN has been modified. Your recent comments the past week or two have already shown that you strongly despise the administration style here. Were you arguing for those pages to go back to an unmoderated state? Despite Izzy appreciating the help? Despite him admitting he can't do it alone? You prefer flamefest feedback pages that Izzy doesn't read over heavily moderated pages that Izzy does read? All in the name of making the wiki friendlier to ranters, whiners, and flamers? Why am I trying to put words in your mouth? Because I have no idea what point you are trying to make. And if I ask you how best to move from here, I'm half guessing that you'll reply that it would pointless because we'll shoot your idea down.

You may also want to carefully re-read the second last paragraph of Auron's opening post before claiming that the other admins are twisting his ideas - it was actually even stricter. I hope you are not assuming that this is intended to be a permanent solution. And lastly, please do not assume that you actually know how much time each individual sysop spends on the wiki on admin stuff that they wouldn't mind spending on content stuff. -- ab.er.rant 09:05, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Read again...still see it the same. Less strict or not is not the same as twisted or different. Does anyone even know how many pages Brains' notice has been put on. This post by the OP was my first realization that it was more then the original two that were at least discussed and posted on the Admin noticeboard. So now I know that there are three discussion pages over which Brains has placed himself as final arbitrator under threat of blocking anyone who disagrees. For all I know, there could already be dozens of pages and other sysops may already be doing the same. Finally, please refer to the comments in the next section made by Ale Jrb since I agree with them. -- Inspired to ____ 18:07, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

First of all, it's not "Brains' notice" -- I may have written it, yes, but it was based on what people agreed upon in the proposal. I don't declare myself final arbitrator, nor do I want to block anyone who disagrees (if that was the case, you'd find plenty of users blocked already) -- if a discussion concluded that something was worth keeping, I'd have put it back in. Secondly, there are currently only two pages, Izzy's and Ursan Blessing's talks. Smiter's Boon was the "emergency case" -- again, this was allowed by the proposal agreed upon; it wasn't to be restricted to just the initial two. I don't appreciate the tone you're taking with me personally, as if I intend to harm the wiki. -- Brains12 \ talk 22:22, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

It's fairly common to refer to something by the author's name and I believe it quickly referred to what I was talking about and that is why I referred to it that way. Where exactly is that discussion to take place since it is the discussion page from which any potentially disputed items are being removed. Also, since the typical first step in any disagreement over content on the wiki is a revert; and that is specifically referred to in the above referenced notice as something which would result in a ban, that is ruled out. Next, I find it discouraging that there is now an "emergency case" being used to explain debatable actions on this wiki. Finally, I don't presume to determine whether actions are done intentionally, recklessly or for the best of reasons. That is not something I am able to determine, nor does it really matter, what really matters is the actions themselves. And, yes I believe these actions are harmful. -- Inspired to ____ 23:43, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Guild_Wars_Wiki_talk:Community_portal/Archive_6a#Solution_-_take_2.1: "These so-called "volatile" pages are to be deemed as such by admin discretion and/or community consensus." In this case, I used my admin discretion to clean up a page that had a lot of negative attention at the time, and instead of locking it completely, I went for the linked process. Discussion and feedback about the skill's quality and what people felt about the update belonged on the skill feedback page, which was clearly linked on the notice.

Telling people not to revert doesn't automatically take away any chance of changing to a previous state; discussion is always open. As I explained below, if something had to be removed, chances are there's a good reason for it and reverting straightaway would only go against that; still, discussion is always open, and that may change if consensus decides so. I guess we'll have to agree to disagree on whether those actions are harmful (although you initially seemed to agree that the purpose of these actions was a good idea, "Agree that main space talk pages should not be allowed to be used for anything other then discussing the article." (and that's even more restrictive -- only certain talk pages are used for that purpose now, not all)). -- Brains12 \ talk 23:56, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

I still agree with that. What I never expected when that was being discussed was that this would become an ends justifies the means endeavor, that there would not be a clear policy delineating what was allowed and what wasn't such there is with NPA; and that sysops would allow themselves to placed in the position of determining what was acceptable or not. Perhaps I'm coming from too American of a "freedom of speech" perspective, but you may be correct that we'll have to agree to disagree on the harm of individuals being censored by those in power. -- Inspired to ____ 00:15, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Hold on, nothing's being censored; people are free to put their comments on a more appropriate page, and discuss things they disagree with. And this "power" you mention? Again, those that were involved in the discussion agreed to let admins carry out these actions, so there's no abuse or censorship here. -- Brains12 \ talk 00:28, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

(Edit conflict) When users become admins, they are trusted to use their discretion in appropriate situations. As these situations vary, and no one situation is like another, no policy can be made for every single potential situation, so admins are given a general set of rules which were outlines in previous discussions, and told to use their discretion while keeping these rules in mind. Also, nobody is being "censored". We're not blanking out text and deleting revisions and blocking users. We're moderating and organizing comments by moving them around to follow a sensible structure. calor (talk) 00:32, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Seriously, I do wish to get out of this discussion. But, comments have been deleted and not just moved. Also, I keep hearing some form of this: "when users become admins, they are trusted to use their discretion". That is backwards and wrong, sysops are given the use of certain tools to administer policies because they are trusted, and quite frankly I don't understand why anyone would desire to determine how far that trust can be pushed. Finally, I don't really care if half the wiki's users agree that the other half should not be allowed to post here, that doesn't make it right; and is the same reason I'm not buying the "those that were involved in the discussion agreed to" argument. -- Inspired to ____ 01:14, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

(Reset indent) Inspired, could you give some clear examples of comments that have been deleted? And it seems that there are 2 groups of users: those that get involved in discussions, and those that complain about decisions made in those discussions and don't like them. There is a reason that this temporary method has been enacted and it has been enacted partly due to the fact that we trust our sysops. At this point, there is no great displeasure with the current system. So, we're refining it, seeing what went wrong, and putting it into policy. Part of that is realizing this was an extraordinary event and will be made "ordinary" with a new policy. --JonTheMon 02:57, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Not to concede anything you have said and yet wanting to only respond to your request. And being willing to play along, here is one I have first hand knowledge of: [1]. I have heard of others, but one of the big problems is how hard it is to actually find and differentiate deletions from moves. Heck, even with the example I gave, I'm not willing to absolutely guarantee that it wasn't saved somewhere else and thus technically I suppose wouldn't be a deletion. -- Inspired to ____ 03:57, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Moving on

As I mentioned in my reply to Inspired above, this protection and enforcement is not meant to be permanently done as it is now. Brains should be applauded for his efforts, however you may think of how well he has done it. Given that it's been in effect for almost a month (I would've waited a bit longer, but the above section prompted it), we need to decide where to go from here before we start forgetting that this was meant to be transitional.

How effective do people think it is? I think feedback from Izzy and those who use those pages a lot would be good. Is it working? Should we start drafting a section to formalise this? Should we scrap this moderation? Refine it? Perhaps some things that was removed should be allowed to retain if only for the sake of being more accommodating (less overbearing and friendlier, as Inspired called it)? Can normal users help with this process (such as by tagging/flagging a section) or should it be left to admins? We'll probably need to update that header a little to make it less threatening, as observed by the anon above. We can start the drafting (if we are drafting) after a couple of supporting comments and we can move the discussion there). -- ab.er.rant 09:35, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

I personally think that the simple fact that Izzy has taken the time to respond to EVERY single post that is currently on his talk page as well as the barrage of questions posed by Nuklear Dark Morphon (woops) to be evidence of the effectiveness of what has been done. I don't believe I've seen him post that much in most of the time I've been here. It should be encouraging to the community that by removing the flaming and walls of discussion among users about skill balance and skill suggestions, they are actually getting the feedback from Izzy they've been so wanting. I'm just afraid that if the process is allowed to go away, things will quickly return to the chaos that used to rule there. I believe input from Anet regarding the suggestion pages has been requested, and I believe that Emily has passed on the request to the various people, but it was just prior to PAX and so it probably hasn't gotten to the top of the priority pile yet. I think a month is not long enough to establish new habits, and we should continue as it is for awhile longer. -- Wyn 09:49, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Mostly I agree with Wynthyst. Isaiah has done plenty of things to make clear that he likes the current system better than the old one; IMO, there's no need to question whether his talk page is better as it is now or as it was before. Regarding the skill feedback pages and the suggestion pages, I think we need to make sure if we want those to exist in the wiki or not before discussing them further.

One thing I do agree with Inspired, though, is that it would be better if the community were able to take care of things like Isaiah's talk page by itself, without relying only on sysops. One of the reasons for this is all the flaming Brains is receiving these days for being the user that is acting the most on Isaiah's talk page - I wish that responsibility could be shared with more people, and I don't see a reason why the entire community could not help in removing content that does not belong there. Before doing so, though, I think it would be better to write a policy officializing this, so common users know and really understand what they're supposed to do - and until said policy is written (something we all know is going to take weeks), I agree that only sysops should be able to remove content from Isaiah's page. Erasculio 13:39, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

I do agree that Brains has borne the brunt of the hate for this, and he has done so honorably and with very little complaint and for that is to be commended. The only problem with opening this up to the community at large is then anyone who didn't agree with something someone said (for any reason, be it rational or not) would then just remove it. Considering the past behavior of some of the people that frequented Izzy's page and other volatile pages in question, and the simple fact this discussion has generated enough commentary to fill 2 archives, I feel that limiting it to people who have been selected by the community, based on trust in their judgment is really the only way to go, thus leaving it in the hands and discretion of the sysops.-- Wyn 14:12, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

I have to agree with wyb on this one. Leaving it to the sysops alone gives a direct chain of accountability also, so that if something is moved or deleted in error people know who to contact. If you leave it open to the community at large this would get very confusing very quickly. -- Salome 14:15, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

I thought more or less the same thing, but the whole "Assume Good Faith" thing is a good reason for us to give it a try, IMO. While I expect some users to misuse this feature in the beginning, I think some mechanisms could be placed to control such misuse (such as preventing people from removing content, allowing only for it to be moved; punishing people who repeatedly remove content that belongs there as vandals, and so on). Such mechanisms could be described in the incoming policy about this issue. Erasculio 14:20, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Erasculio on the AGF, but we should always have the sysops to fall back on as described by Salome. --People of Antioch 15:10, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Same. This would've gone nowhere if Brains wasn't working so hard. Thanks Brains :). I would prefer to see the process of moving and moderating done by sysops, but as we have quite a shortage of active sysops, and three or four more coming soon, we'd be cutting it close workwise. In reality, we probably would need to allow normal users to somehow partake in moderating. I would also prefer to have some sort of policy or guideline (Guild Wars Wiki:Moderation?) drafted in the coming days and weeks, then instituted and followed, so the moderation process becomes a routine duty for users and sysops. calor (talk) 16:48, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Two pages (so far), three more sysops coming (just a guess). How can we not be able to handle this with just sysops? I know people post often on Izzy's page, but as we start moderating (as Pling has done) the number of "bad comments" should diminish. I might not have looked into this fully, but aren't we doing quite ok already, with only Pling checking? Have two more sysops set on the task and we're ok. I'm not opposed to forming a guideline, and I don't think one user here or there removing comments is bad. I do think moderation in general should be performed by sysops though, if for nothing else but to have a control measure so it doesn't go overboard. - anja 17:01, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

(reset indent) I haven't posted on any of the talk pages that have been marked as volatile, but I have been watching them quite carefully since this whole thing went ahead. I'm sure that (almost) everyone would agree that the talk pages are better now than they were before, so this should be seen as a step in the right direction. I am a little concerned, however, that this is being approached as a giant, giant leap rather than the step it is.

As I see it, the majority of the problem lies in the horrible hypocrisy of the whole idea that sysops are moving content, placing notices on pages saying you will be blocked if you disagree, and then enforcing those notices. In general, this is fine - you see it on forums every hour of every day. My point is that this whole idea was brought up in the first place, because..? Yep - wikis are not forums, and they should not be treated like them.

Admins are not forum moderators. They have the same power over content as any other user, and should therefore be unable to enforce the movement of content because they feel it does not belong. Instead, discussion and debate should control the movement of content, which would eliminate the whole problem that started this follow-up: a user who felt the content had been moved incorrectly, but was powerless to change it because of the (at the time non-existent) policy, that is far too harsh anyway.

Adminship is no big deal and should not be treated as such. Admins are not moderators. Policies are not rules, to be enforced at will by those with power over those without. A wiki is a consensus based community, that polices and manages itself. Sysops only exist to provide the technical maintenance that would be dangerous in the hands of new users. People should solely be working towards the betterment of the wiki, an entity in-and-of itself. Blocks and so-forth should be preventive rather than punitive, used only when the wiki needs to be protected from someone with malicious intent. Moderation should be performed by the community, and sysops only step in when technical assistance is needed. A wiki is not a forum, and should not be ruled like one.

(reading over that, some of my points are a little unclear. I will summarise:)

• At-discretion enforcement of rules by sysops, over normal users, invokes a powerful image of a dictatorship-like regime. This must be avoided, and is the reason the sysop policy currently reads like it does.
• This new policy will change that, damaging the wiki as it does so.
• Despite this, talk pages do need some management as the wiki is not a forum. This was the original point.
• The community is much more important than the sysops. Much. It should not be left up to sysops to decide whether something is in the wrong place - anyone should be able to contribute - and if a move is incorrect, in any way, anyone should be able to revert it, without the fear of being blocked as punishment. As Wikipedia says, 'If a policy or guideline prevents you improving or maintaining Wikipedia, ignore it.'

Just some thoughts ;) Ale_Jrb (talk) 17:25, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Note that the above was referring to the policy-type-test-thing as it stands, and is just ideas on how it can be improved. I re-read it again, and it came across a little accusing. Oops :D. Ale_Jrb (talk) 18:21, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Ok, a couple of random thoughts.

• Pages that become forums end up having to be moderated like forums to function
• If sysops enforcing existing rules is a dictatorship, then I'm fine with it. Otherwise, anarchy.
• I see no reason why the user couldn't appeal to Brains about his moved section.
• Granted, I see how having to ask a user (sysop) to make a change rather than just making the change could be seen as a drastic change (Please, sir, may I edit some more?)
• There was concensus (more like "Sure, go ahead") about this change. So the whole "OMG need community concensus" has already been reached. Of course, that concensus could change, which is where the policy comes in.
• (If you made it through all that, grats.) I can see how the current tone would be bad for a policy (rules over community). However, sysops are chosen because they are trusted members of the community who are allowed to excercise discretion. Probably the closest tone would be: "This page is volatile. As such, it will be monitored more closely and policy will be applied more broadly and quicker."
• --JonTheMon 18:43, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

What Ale said is perfect in theory, and it's what we have to aim for, IMO, but I don't think it works. Like Jon said above, we have some sections of the wiki that right now feel like forums; and the problem with that isn't as much a matter of bureaucracy as a matter of how "Assume Good Faith" does not apply in a forum. The idea that "a user who felt the content had been moved incorrectly, but was powerless to change it because of the (at the time non-existent) policy" is a bad thing only applies when you assume that the user in question understands what the community thinks about the issue and follows it; something that unfortunately does not apply in forums, or in the old Ursan Blessing page, or in the Smiter's Boon page.

I still believe that the best option regarding these more "forum-like" areas of the wiki is to delete them (removing the GW2 suggestions page, for example). Until that's done, I think sysops have at least to begin the moderation (something that was not expected to exist in a wiki) until a large part of the community is able to take over and moderate itself. Erasculio 18:53, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

By the way, you'll probably notice that no-one has been blocked yet, so this thing that "anyone who opposes is blocked right away" is unfounded. Users who have had their comments moved or removed are being told where and why. The blocks come in if a user continuously posts things that he knows don't belong on that talk page (i.e. knowingly ignoring the notice), or reverts an admin who is enforcing that which has consensus -- it's a last case scenario to prevent that user continuing with the comments that don't belong there. It can be analogised as a user vandalising an article -- he knows it's a bad thing to do, yet does it anyway; one bad edit would not lead to an outright block, but will be "ignored" and good faith (or no-continuous-bad-faith) assumed/perhaps a notice given to that user; continuation in spite of that may lead to a block.

More specific responses to Ale Jrb:

• "At-discretion enforcement of rules by sysops, over normal users, invokes a powerful image of a dictatorship-like regime." Sysops are, as Jon says, trusted users who have been chosen by the community to 1. use their tools appropriately, 2. enforce policies and consensus, 3. think about their actions when using those tools and help the wiki in doing so. That is not a dictatorship; call it somewhat of a democratic meritocracy if you will. And your point lies on the assumption that dictatorship is a bad thing -- a malignant dictatorship (like those we see in the real world) is bad, yes; a benevolent dictatorship is not, and on a wiki where trusted users only contribute to better the wiki, a dictatorship isn't "OMG EVIL". That's going off-topic though, so back to the point (and before anyone misreads my comments, I'm not saying I see myself or anyone else here as a dictator). I don't see why "this must be avoided", considering sysops only contribute to better the wiki.
• "It should not be left up to sysops to decide whether something is in the wrong place" -- the community had decided that something like this was to be the case: trusted and chosen users, who would not abuse their position and who understand what they're doing, can clean up pages, move things to where they belong, and remove inappropriate things. Also, as Jon says, anyone opposing a move can always take it up with the acting sysop and reach a consensus as to whether the comment should stay or go -- it would be more efficient to discuss something after the move/removal rather than before, as the purpose of these actions is to keep pages clean; if it was necessary to move something in the first place, it's likely doing more harm staying there than not staying there for the moment. Again, this relies on the discretion of these trusted users, so chances are that moves and removals they make are well-founded.

-- Brains12 \ talk 20:09, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Some specific responses to both JonTheMon and Brains12:

• "By the way, you'll probably notice that no-one has been blocked yet" -- If people who opposed were not blocked right away, that's great. I wonder, though, how many people accepted their content being moved to somewhere they thought it did not belong because the notice said that people who reverted an administrative action would be blocked without further warning? As I said earlier, I was making points on how the system could be improved. Point 1 - word the notice slightly more carefully, perhaps taking into account what people might read into it. This will help avoid bad feelings building up, and help newer users feel less intimidated just because they disagree with something that an "OMG ADMIN" has done, which would obviously be beneficial to the wiki, which is what we all want.
• "And your point lies on the assumption that dictatorship is a bad thing" ... "If sysops enforcing existing rules is a dictatorship, then I'm fine with it. Otherwise, anarchy." -- Interesting... The man who would give up a little liberty, to gain a little security, deserves neither, and will lose both is rather relevant in this case, I think. I shall make a couple of points. A benevolent dictator is a logical impossibility, because the act of dictating is not benevolent (it is not beneficial to all parties, because the dictator is removing someone's freedom, which is not beneficial). Not that that's really the point, or relevant to the wiki - so I don't really know why you said it. I simply said it conjured up that image, to get across a point. I never said that the sysops were dictators - re-read my comments. Anyway, on topic: sysop-ship is a technical position, designed to enforce policies (which, incidently, are not rules - they're simply community consensus written down). Sysops are trusted, which is why they have the technical capabilities. That doesn't mean they have more of a right than other members of the community to decide where something goes.

This is point 2: the policy should set out points on what is, and what is not allowed from day 1, then sysops do not use discretion, they enforce the community consensus. Which is the point. This means that any user should be able to move content to the correct page. There can be no restrictions on working to better the wiki, which was partially suggested above. Also, consensus can, of course, change. Consensus is not simply a majority vote - people must reach a compromise. This means that if someone disagrees with a move, it should be discussed, any logic put forward for both parties, and a solution reached, all minus any threat of blocks or other punishment to the user. The message should not say that policy will be applied more vigorously, or that sysops have discretion, but instead simply point to the policy in question (that we're discussing now). Only if the user is clearly ignoring the existing consensus on purpose should that take precedence, and even then adequate warning should be given politely mentioning that one can be blocked for not complying with policy. That (to me at least, I don't know about everyone else) seems fair and mature, and should be manageable with all the great new sysops that should soon be taking up the job :D.

• "the community had decided that something like this was to be the case" -- yep, and now we're reviewing that decision, and I'm saying that I think we could do even better. I think you've done a great job enforcing that decision up until now, which is why I haven't complained at all! Now, though, we're trying to get from the 'step' I mentioned above, to a whole new policy, which has to be as good as we can possibly make it. As for your statement, meet point 3: I think that users should be able to move content based upon the policy we come up with, which lays out what can and can't be posted (don't forget - sysops are users too, so they can move stuff as well! ;P). I agree that it would be more efficient to discuss after a move, that sounds great to me. Perhaps a page could be created where that sort of thing could be discussed (if a policy like this were created, it could be applied to all these skill-type pages, as it wouldn't hamper discussion - which would simply take place on another page - and would help if a skill becomes the target of a 'volatile' update in the future). Trusted users have the technical abilities to enforce whatever it is a discussion comes to - involving not just one sysop. This would also reduce the slack that it targeted at one or two sysops, as someone would be fighting the community, not an individual. Which suits our community nicely :D.
• "Pages that become forums end up having to be moderated like forums to function" -- they have to be moderated, but they don;t have to be moderated like a forum - 'cos this isn't one! The perfect policy would allow any user to tap into the technical abilities that only the trusted users control, simply because those abilities are potentially dangerous.

To finish, I'd like to say that I think the sysops are great, and often don't get thanked enough (thanks guys and gals!) for wielding that which not everyone can be trusted with. That doesn't mean they should (have to) take responsibility for so much. The community is great at doing that too. That's it! Cheers :) Ale_Jrb (talk) 21:02, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Everyone gets a reply but me, I feel lonely now ;_; Seriously, though, maybe it would be time to actually write down this policy, if we're going to keep talking about it so much. Erasculio 22:02, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

I don't think it's a good idea to try and list anything and everything in a policy; as we've seen with GWW:NPA, once things are listed down, not much thinking goes on -- there are grey areas, yet people will continue to act on just what they see rather than what they think as well. Nor do I think sysops are restricted to just policy enforcement -- sysops have discretion and are allowed to use it, unlike Wikipedia (which I know you use often), where almost everything is written down. I'd respond to your comments on wiki-dictatorships, but this discussion has enough off-topicness already, so perhaps another time/place. -- Brains12 \ talk 22:13, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Hmm... maybe. Well, I'm going to bed now. I'll look at this again tomorrow. Ale_Jrb (talk) 22:15, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

IMO, the main advantage of a policy page would be to explain this issue to the users who were not part of this discussion. The notice at Isaiah's talk page and the notice at the top of Ursan Blessing are very small descriptions, but I believe a full policy could have clearer definitions (the kind of thing that is allowed and that isn't allowed on Isaiah's page, for example; not a point by point list, rather a summary with the general idea) and help to resolve some doubts (I'm still unsure, for example, if an article about a skill is allowed or not to have discussions about that skill, and how moving balance discussions will interact with the proposals for the skill feedback guidelines). Erasculio 04:51, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

IMO it would also work as a guideline or part of a broader talk page guideline. Another benefit of a dedicated or semi-dedicated page is that it would provide a more appropriate location for volatile talk page related discussions. -- Gordon Ecker 05:34, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

(Reset indent) For what it's worth, from a wiki-lurker who did a bit of work on adding info for hard mode to explorer/mission pages shortly after it went live, and who recently came back to the game only to run accross this nice little sign stating if anyone started discussing something on a talk page that sysops (and apparently some members of the community) felt didn't belong there, that I would be banned without warning... (please excuse the bluntness from here on out) Let's just say I immediately and without a second thought decided to leave all content updates and discussions to the "fanbois" in the community. Quite frankly, if you want to enforce censorship of talk pages to such an extent that users can/will be blocked without a chance to even defend themselves for something as insignificant as discussing something on the wrong page, you'll quickly be doing nothing more than talking to yourselves. All such a policy will do is discourage users from participating in the wiki, which goes against the concept of a wiki. Now, I'm not saying that making sure talk page discussions are civil (that's always a good thing) and kept on the proper pages (organization is good) is a bad thing, but threatening to block users for it is assinine, disheartening, and offensive to the community as a whole. And saying "well no one was blocked" is no excuse/defense. The mere fact that several sysops are aggreeing that it is a good idea to threaten the userbase into compliance over talk pages has me scratching my head wondering how certain people got such a position in the first place.

A wiki is a community. A key factor in the success of a community lies in its ability to communicate. (Funny how similar those words are eh?) Anything that weakens the ability for its members to communicate weakens the community. Organization is good. Keeping discussions civil is good. But punitive measures as a direct result of a discussion is censorship, pure and simple. Censorship is the bane of communication. People start thinking twice (or more) about what they say. Some people stop talking at all. Let me ask you this: What good is a "concensus" when you reach the point that the majority of people that have anything to say about it aren't saying anything at all for fear of reprisal?

Again, I think keeping discussions civil and on the proper pages is a good goal... But threatening to block a user for stating his/her opinions in a civil manner just because a handful of people (who happen to be the most vocal when it comes to policy) don't think it's the proper place to state said opinion is unacceptable.

PS: This being my first time ever editing a talk page, I'm sure I broke some rule or other, if I'm not insta-banned feel free to tell me which one it is -.-' Janwen 11:47, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

(I just put a reset indent before your stuff). Nope, this is the right place and you broke none of the policies. And I'm not sure you fully understand the situation. First, the rules you were mentioning only apply to "volatile" pages, which number 3. So only 3 pages have this rule applied. So 3 pages out of the thousands have this rule applied. Secondly, I don't think you understand how bad those pages were. "Comment, comment, FLAMEFLAMEFLAME NOOB FLAME OMGNOOOOOOOO" That's just my interpretation, but many would agree. Third, If you read the rules strictly, yes it means swift, punitive action. If you read them a bit more loosely, it means someone who's going out of their way to break the rules gets punished. So, the tone might be bad, but the rules are flexible (discretion?) --JonTheMon 12:51, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

If this issue makes people "start thinking" about what they say, IMO it's improving the wiki. It's a simple matter: someone who states his opinion at the wrong place, regarding one of those few "volatile pages", will simply be told it's the wrong place and will have his contribution moved. If someone ignores the advice of the community and insists in an action that he has just been told is disruptive...He will be blocked, like any other vandal (since that's what a vandal is - someone who follows what he knows is a disruptive behavior). IMO, that's just coherency, and as far as censorship as removing this. Erasculio 00:02, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Unfortunately you don't get it...censorship does not usually equal preventing someone from saying something directly; usually it is much more subtle. Every time someone considers the potential consequences (will I be blocked? will it be removed? will it be moved?) then that becomes defacto censorship because to often they will just decide not to even take the chance. And before you suggest that what they were going to say probably shouldn't have been said anyway, remember that we already had rules for NPA , etc. and those people will never bother to consider what they say. The only people this type of thing affect are those whose comments are other fine, but don't want to be controversial in the slightest. -- Inspired to ____ 03:21, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

There are, it seems to me, four possible outcomes that follow from this doctrine: (1) User A posts a comment which is it pertinent and appropriate; no administrative action is taken; no censorship occurs, (2) User A posts a comment which, while appropriate is not relevant; the comment is moved; however, speech has not, in this instance, been suppressed in so far as that the post's efficacy has not been diminished as a result of the move; therefor, censorship has not occurred and the poster, so long as he is notified is unlikely, I think, to be dissuaded from further posting; (3) User A posts a comment which is neither pertinent nor appropriate; the comment is removed and the user is warned; in this instance, censorship, of a kind, has occurred. However, there are a few things that should be borne in mind: (a) by your own logic, flaming and equally inappropriate behavior are, in of themselves, a kind of de facto censorship since they dissuade users from becoming involved in discussions for fear of being flamed, etc. Since the basis of your argument seems to be that censorship should not occur, the logical course of action would be to remove the flaming and the inappropriate comments in order to increase the efficacy of the talk page in question. And, bear in mind that comments need not violate NPA, etc. per se to have a similar impact. Do you begin to see the problem? (b) Censorship, in of itself, is not a bad thing. I would argue, for instance, that it's not a bad thing that the First Amendment to the US Constitution does not allow slander or libel. Problems begin to arise when legitimate communication is suppressed. So, the question we need to answer is whether we're suppressing legitimate communication, i.e. whether the posts we're removing (remember, moving a post does not constitute censorship unless the user's communicative efficacy is diminished) are disruptive a priori of the doctrine we're asserting to remove them. It's a hard question to answer; indeed, the only evidence that we have is the impact the doctrine has had on the volatile talk pages. It seems to me that based on Izzy's increased activity, etc. the communicative efficacy of a user posting a valid comment on Izzy's talk page has been increased -- i.e. Izzy is more likely to respond (which would be the opposite of censorship); indeed, some people may become more inclined to communicate as a result. And, unless the administrators begin to remove many, many more posts than they have been up to this point, I think it's a bit of a slippery slope to claim that user's will become disinclined to post because they're afraid their posts will be removed. Of course, if the censor (in this case, an administrator) "incorrectly" deems a comment inappropriate/irrelevant, problems may arise, but it's exceedingly easy to appeal such a decision by contacting a neutral administrator. (4) User A posts a comment that is neither appropriate nor relevant; appropriate administrative action is taken; User A persists; User A is banned. As in (3), censorship has occurred, but the ban itself is for persistently disruptive behavior; as Erasculio points out above, in this instance, User A is, for all intents and purposes, a vandal and is banned as such. Unless people start being arbitrarily banned, I find it unlikely that someone would be dissuaded from posting unless they'd already been warned, in which case, assuming the warning, itself, was justified, it's probably a good thing if the poster in question is dissuaded; in fact, in this instance, I would argue that the doctrine has succeeded. Of course, one could argue that the volatile talk page notice, in its current form is, in of itself, a kind of censorship, but that's really a semantic issue which doesn't directly pertain to the doctrine itself. You could also argue that "the ends don't justify the means," but, in this case, given that the means are questionably "bad" censorship and the ends are increased communicative efficacy, I would argue that the ends do indeed justify the means. *Defiant Elements* +talk 04:59, 8 September 2008 (UTC)