Guild Wars Wiki talk:Content retention/Archive

I'm for everything in this article. - BeXoR 20:05, 7 February 2007 (PST)

Might as well discuss it here

→ Continued in Project talk:Policy/Builds

External websites and applications

I disagree with the current wording of this section. See Guild Wars Wiki talk:Third party software (contents of that link moved here) and also see the discussion at talk:Fansites. --Barek 09:21, 11 February 2007 (PST)

Third Party Software

← moved from Guild Wars Wiki talk:Third party software

I hadn't seen this discussion started yet, please point me to it if I missed it. What limitations / restrictions should be set on documenting third party software?

Specifically, will it be allowed? What type of third party software will be acceptable? What degree of commentary should be permitted on it? What degree of validation testing is needed to confirm it's mal-ware (spyware, trojan, etc)?

I have no problem listing available third party tools, but how do we confirm the legitimacy of little-known tools? As for degree of documentation, I suggest just a brief description and a link - we shouldn't be hosting documentation for third party tools. Also, if permitted, I would say that any such tool should be tagged with something comparable to this on at GuildWiki. --Barek 09:19, 11 February 2007 (PST)

Perhaps it'd be best to simply have a single page of known third party tools (there aren't all that many I can think of off the top of my head) with redirects pointing at it. Easy to maintain, involves no commentary by us, can be warned against in on go. As for confirming legitimacy, that's harder to do. Perhaps limit the list to only well known, commonly used stuff? though criteria for that would be vague at best. --NieA7 12:26, 13 February 2007 (PST)

After posting the above, I found that this subject is also contained in Guild Wars Wiki:Article retention - should it just be merged over to there as there's no proposal here in the article page? --Barek 12:33, 13 February 2007 (PST)

Don't see why not, unless we feel like chatting to one another alone for a while :p --NieA7 12:36, 13 February 2007 (PST)

So...

What is the POV on historical information ? It just states that it's treated 'differently'. --Erszebet 07:08, 20 February 2007 (PST)

'No articles dedicated to specific builds'

This is in conflict with the Builds Policy page currently being developed. It seems to have been accepted that there will be a builds section, and that there will be pages about individual builds (though the requirements for a build to be eligible are still being debated) so perhaps this page should be updated to reflect what the policy actually is. Cynical 12:19, 20 February 2007 (PST)

As noted by Tanaric here it was simply listed in the article retention policy to prevent a flood of builds being written prior to any policy being put in place. As the policy is not yet agreed upon, I think it prudent to leave in this article for the moment, for reasons listed by Tanaric. Lojiin 12:34, 20 February 2007 (PST)

Fansites?

Please review Talk:Fansite. The talk there and the contents here should be in sync. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 11:50, 24 February 2007 (EST)

Switch to draft mode

I would like to switch this policy proposal to draft mode (and maybe work on incorporating stuff from Guild Wars Wiki talk:Deletion policy#rumors?). Any opposition to this? --Rezyk 16:50, 14 March 2007 (EDT)

Can we accept this as it stands?

I think this policy is really important to have in the ground before official announcement on Friday. I've added temporary notes about build and guild pages in order to have something to refer to when deleting build/guild articles. I'd like to make this official policy, even though it's not necessarily complete. I don't think anything here is confrontational. Please reply with thoughts for or against as quickly as possible, so we can push this through.

—Tanaric 00:19, 22 March 2007 (EDT)

Other than Barek's concerns on fansites (see two sections up), I don't see a problem with the article as it stands. --Rainith 00:24, 22 March 2007 (EDT)

Added note about the discussion to the section it applies to. We can easily amend this article once we figure out our stance. —Tanaric 00:27, 22 March 2007 (EDT)

I removed a statement regarding alpha leaks (and was linking to Guild Wars Wiki:No alpha leaks) because it seems like something highly controversial. --Rezyk 01:00, 22 March 2007 (EDT)

I generally support this. On a related note, another hopefully-noncontroversial proposal for another policy is at Guild Wars Wiki talk:Official content#Proposed update, hopefully noncontroversial. --Rezyk 01:45, 22 March 2007 (EDT)

I rephrased the part about historical content. I support the current draft / proposal. -- Gordon Ecker 02:08, 22 March 2007 (EDT)

I'm fine with it. -- ab.er.rant 03:27, 22 March 2007 (EDT)

I think it contains everything that we currently have and need. I like the rejection of builds until that policy is finalised. ~ dragon legacy 03:41, 22 March 2007 (EDT)

I think this policy is ok, the only part I wonder about is the section on historical content. If we want to implement this policy I would like for the section on historical content to either say "this policy will deal with historical content" with a link or for it to say nothing on the subject. LordBiro 04:45, 22 March 2007 (EDT)

I posted the same remark a while ago on this page. I'd say; in general: don't keep historical info (like quests, NPCs etc. that are removed from the game). An exception on this could be the special events like Canthan New Year - 1 article will do, but no separate articles for all the NPCs, or something along those lines. Can't think of something else right now. --Erszebet 06:54, 22 March 2007 (EDT)

I'm not saying that we should decide that here. The article implies that historical article policy will reside elsewhere, all that I'm saying is that if this is the case then we should either point to the article where it will be decided or not mention it. LordBiro 07:04, 22 March 2007 (EDT)

I know what you said. But since the article/policy on historical info doesn't exist yet, I though I might as well mention it here...sjeez :P btw, I don't see much harm in mentioning it in this article, keeps it more centralized, no ? --Erszebet 07:31, 22 March 2007 (EDT)

I don't care where the legacy article policy is, but I don't want the debate on the controversial subject of legacy articles to delay the approval of this hopefully non-controversial proposal. -- Gordon Ecker 07:48, 22 March 2007 (EDT)

I approve with the suggestion in its current state. I would also like to have the historical article policy soon, but it isn't as fatal as this. -- (gem / talk) 08:32, 22 March 2007 (EDT)

Erszebet, I intended to say that I did not think that the historical articles issue should be discussed in this policy, but my choice of words was a little ambiguous. You responded by saying what you thought the policy on historical articles should contain, as though you were in agreement with me. I thought that, because of my poor choice of words, you were under the impression that I thought that this should be discussed here, and so I posted a clarification. I apologise if it seemed condescending!

I don't think the historical article/legacy policy should be discussed here. It is a contentious issue with many, and it is deserving of its own policy. LordBiro 09:22, 22 March 2007 (EDT)

I've moved the draft into policy space. —Tanaric 23:52, 25 March 2007 (EDT)

proposed policy addition

How about adding a section similar to this:

Redirects

Redirects are an acceptable means to improve navigation of the wiki. These can assist users who are using the search function to go directly to the article they are trying to find without the need of selecting an entry from a list of search results. See Guild Wars Wiki:Redirects for information on how to create redirect.

The argument for adding this is that it spells out up-front that the use of redirects on the wiki is accepted as a good thing. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 11:14, 27 March 2007 (EDT)

Generally good, but can we soften it somewhat with something like "Redirects are generally an acceptable..."? Note that GWW:DELETE gives speedy deletes for some kinds of redirects, and I want to try avoiding arguments along the lines of: "GWW:CONTENT says my redirect is okay" versus "GWW:DELETE says it's not okay". --Rezyk 16:23, 27 March 2007 (EDT)

I think it's important to say that they are encouraged, as opposed to generally acceptable. I understand your reasoning, Rezyk, but I would propose something slightly different:

Redirects

Redirects are an encouraged means to improve navigation of the wiki, provided they do not redirect to the user or guild namespaces. They can assist users who are using the search function to go directly to the article they are trying to find without the need of selecting an entry from a list of search results. See Guild Wars Wiki:Redirects for information on how to create redirect.

I have bolded my alterations. Is this too verbose? LordBiro 16:35, 27 March 2007 (EDT)

I agree with that reasoning too, but worry slightly about stuff like speedy delete R2 and fringe cases we might have missed. How about "Redirects are generally an encouraged means..."? =D --Rezyk 19:11, 27 March 2007 (EDT)

lol :) OK, I can live with that! LordBiro 19:30, 27 March 2007 (EDT)

I like it. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 20:41, 27 March 2007 (EDT)

Supported. —Tanaric 12:35, 28 March 2007 (EDT)

So has the anti-build faction finally achieved their long term goal?

The goal of eliminating builds from the wiki(s) of course. I see that on the old wiki, it needed some heavy handed tactics, while here sneaky editing was enough.

Don't be fooled: "Until a proposed policy is made official, the official wiki retains no information on builds." is the same as "we will not have any builds here, ever". With a build policy needing consensus (well at least I was under the impression that policies need consensus), a few die-hard build haters will always be enough to stop any build policy which enables builds to be posted from being made final. And until then, this one line will provide a convenient excuse not to have builds. In the face of months and months of discussions on build policy, well witnessed by most of the regular editors here, I call anyone who says otherwise a blatant liar.

The only flaw in this beautiful plan (which, btw, Tanaric already tried when he first made this page User talk:Tanaric#Policy) is the fact that consensus was not found when making this policy. I was away during the last weeks, or I would have disagreed again, but you need only look back at the second edit ever made on this talk page to find the disagreement. It was swiftly moved to another talk page - that does not make it invalid. --Xeeron 09:02, 5 April 2007 (EDT)

I think that the current build policy proposal is doing pretty fine, although I would like to wait to see how Gwiki decides to handle builds before allowing them here, just to see how it works for GWiki. -- (gem / talk) 09:08, 5 April 2007 (EDT)

Xeeron, you're acting as though builds are being swept under the rug, even despite Guild Wars Wiki talk:Policy/Builds being actively discussed!

I'm not sure what you expected. The fact is that the build policy should not be decided as part of the article retention policy; if it was then the article retention policy would never be finished. Please don't act as though the editing was "sneaky". If you had been here at the time I would hope you would not have been so unreasonable as to suggest that we should allow builds in the main namespace even before the builds policy is finalised!

Perhaps there is another side to this I'm not seeing, but I don't think there's anything unreasonable about saying "let's not have any builds until the policy is finished"... LordBiro 14:51, 5 April 2007 (EDT)

Rainith was the first to mention the form of the editing, but I tend to agree, seeing how the edit summary said "copied from Guildwiki", but guildwiki had a very different stance regarding builds. There is no consensus to either have builds or have no builds, yet this policy (being implemented without having consensus), makes one side of the discussion current policy. --Xeeron 12:08, 6 April 2007 (EDT)

Was there disagreement against this being made policy? I thought consensus had been reached. - BeXoR 12:11, 6 April 2007 (EDT)

I disagreed right after that part was introduced. Stabber moved the discussion to the build policy talk page, where several other people voiced the opinion that some form of build should be allowed here. --Xeeron 13:58, 6 April 2007 (EDT)

I see no problem with stating no builds until a policy exists. The last thing we want is a half dozen or more different build methodologies popping up to try to reconcile after the fact.

As to the actual build policy - from what I can see, talk on it has been stalled for weeks and there's still no build format guideline to go with it. The way I see it, your irritation is misdirected by complaining here - get movement again on the policy, and equally importantly, at least start or get someone to start a draft formatting article. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 12:31, 6 April 2007 (EDT)

I made not one but two policy proposals, the build policy talk page is full of my edits. I also made Starburster, which, while not being a formating guideline, is meant as an example, from which a formating guideline can be easily constructed. It definitely is not for lack of me trying that we dont have a builds policy yet.

As long as there are people with opinions like this "I doubt any consensus was reached. There are still a lot of supporters of no builds what-so-ever on the wiki (myself included.) -Warskull 15:11, 14 March 2007 (EDT)" around, getting a consensus on a build policy will be impossible. Since people have such hardened opinions, it will be close to impossible to get consensus for either builds or no builds (meaning that some form of compromising needs to happen). What this article retention proposal does is deciding that discussion without any form of compromise by handing full veto power to the no builds side. It also disallows the idea of finding solutions by having different people try different concepts and see what works.

For these reasons, I disagreed and still disagree with including a point blank clause disallowing builds. --Xeeron 13:58, 6 April 2007 (EDT)

I disagree with that interpretation. From what I can see, nothing prevents users from using their userspace to finding solutions by having different people try different concepts and see what works.

The flip side of your statement would also be true - by not having this statement here, it would effectively permit builds to be introduced randomly into the main article namespace with no guiding policy structures in place - effectively permitting chaos of no restrictions, formatting, and allowing for the random introduction of multiple vetting processes simultaneously. For these reasons, I see nothing whatsoever wrong with the current retention policy. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 14:07, 6 April 2007 (EDT)

People were also categorically against having pages about guilds here on the GWW, Xeeron; look at the Guilds policy now, it has almost reached consensus. As far as Builds go, even though myself I am against having them on the wiki, it's nonetheless obvious that they will exist in some form or another (I hope more around "guides not builds" rather than the GuildWiki approach). The reason that the builds policy here has been stalling isn't because there's editors that don't want builds around; it's because the majority of the users are hesitant while they watch the mess that is happening on GuildWiki. Builds are obviously a door that once open is almost impossible to close (without breaking anyone's limbs and fingers in the process, at least). Why do you find it surprising that everyone is being cautious so as to avoid causing that same situation twice? --Dirigible 14:16, 6 April 2007 (EDT)

@Barek: Sorry, I cant come along to your side of the arguement. You say that people are free to try different concepts and make it sound like having multiple vetting concepts compete would be horrible at the same time. You argue that disallowing and not disallowing are the two sides the same coin, yet one is ok in your mind, the other is not. Seems inconsistent to me.

@Dirigible: Fair enough, I see your point on guilds. Lets hope you are right and I am wrong and we will have a compromise on builds policy soon. I should do not find it surprising that people are cautious (or to be more correct, some are strongly opposed to any builds at all), but my assessment of the "situation" has always been different from what those argueing against builds see. When balancing what viewers want against convienience for editors, I tend to go more strongly with what users want that most here. While opponents of builds point out the amount of trash talk on the talk pages, I see how builds consistenly were among the most viewed pages on guildwiki (and do you think that 30000 people, more than Gaile News, clicked the build link here to see the definition of a build?). --Xeeron 15:58, 6 April 2007 (EDT)

You missed the key distinction ... with this in place, they are free to test/experiment in their userspace, while not cluttering the main article space with inconsistent or even conflicting design concepts. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 16:03, 6 April 2007 (EDT)

Adding a line here?

While I was reading this, I saw no mention of something along the lines of "Fix, not Delete". I'm seeing a few pages that are having deletion tags being slapped on them rather than having the page itself fixed by someone who knows exactly how a page should be formatted. Any feedback on this? — Rapta (talk|contribs) 00:03, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

Are they ordinary articles or guild articles? - BeX 01:42, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

Does it matter? --Dirigible 13:53, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

Well I suspected his comment was about guild articles, in which case there's discussion (and a resolution) about that elsewhere. If it's about anything else then he should be reading/commenting at GWW:DELETE. - BeX 14:22, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

Is it appropriate for that to be in this policy? I see this policy as regarding what is retained. How we go about retaining things isn't really the concern of a policy isn't it? Might be better off in Help, or as guidelines (provided we rename "Formatting" to "Guidelines" of course. -- ab.er.rant 02:25, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

I see it the same, this is the what, not the how. Discussions of the latter should go in the appropriate spot. (Aiiane - talk - contribs) 02:31, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Removed Features

Should we be keeping articles on removed game features, such as quests and NPC's? I'm talking about stuff like Baron Ulrikar, Gain Olias, evade, refund points, Pygmy Hippopotamus, Light damage and Scarred Earth. Personally I firmly believe we should, as long as it is clearly acknowledged on the page that the item in question is now removed. I think we should be documenting everything - I remember when I was a new player I went to GuildWiki to see what had been removed from the game, just out of curiosity, and at the time they had really strict policies on it. I don't think that should happen here. --Santax (talk · contribs) 08:35, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

I think this sort of content should be left, and tagged with a notice template. I know that if I stopped playing for a couple of months, as people are prone to do for a variety of reasons, and then came back to something like the last huge update, I would be incredibly confused about things. - BeX 10:16, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

I support keeping the articles and tagging them with a legacy template which should clearly state that the topic discussed was removed (preferably with a link to when/why it was removed and what replaced it). --Xeeron 10:59, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

In addition to placing a tag on the page, the content could probably be compressed. Instead of full detail information just give the general info on removed stuff. -- (gem / talk) 16:13, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

I agree that we should keep these articles and make note of when they were taken out and what replaced it. Because some of the quest articles were not written before the quest was taken out we can not properly fill in all of the information. So we should just add general information like what Gem said. --Sktbrd341 23:04, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Definitely keep. Otherwise this implies that special event articles shouldn't be created at all, since they usually expire after a weekend. -- ab.er.rant 09:26, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

I agree with keeping them, from a historic sense it is quite interesting to read about features that have been removed and you may have forgotten about. --Lemming64 17:54, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

I have changed my stance on these. Not only should we keep them, we should keep them in full detail. My monk still has the quest Gain Olias in his log, and he's doing it right now. Just because the quest is no longer obtainable does not mean the quest is no longer doable. —Tanaric 15:14, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Alpha/Beta and Hidden Monster Skills

Here is a list of all professions, attributes and skills. The majority of these you will recognise, but there will be a few redlinks and the like on that list, but there will be some, mainly the Locked and Invalid skills, that only the oldest testers will remember. Should we have pages on these skills? Imo, if they're still in-game, even if inacessible, then they are still part of the game and should be documented. And yes, there are still ways to access them, through skill tempalte codes and slow connections. Some of the older fansites also appear to have listings of the since-removed skills. --Santax (talk · contribs) 14:03, 16 June 2007 (UTC)