Would you like for us to make an integrated Wiki?

[mewarmo990]

I think you people are beating up on Mike a little too much for his character preference. Or at least, constantly using him as a negative example while you're trying to discuss ideas with him is not entirely conducive to the tone of the discussion. On the other hand, Mike, as soon as you make an argument you need to NOT immediately say "BUT WELL I DON'T TRUST EVERYONE WHO ISN'T ME TO NOT BE AN ASSHOLE" if you want to be taken seriously here.

Unless y'all just trollan, then whatever.

My concerns about editing controls over translations (if we were to dump them there and not in the respective forum like we've done so far) are a separate, easily resolved issue. As for the wiki itself... my opinion is that with moderation (to prevent blatant vandalism) and adequate discussion to agree on things before the "final" text is up on the wiki, it should be fine.

So when's the ETA for implementation?

With all this arguing, it almost seemed as if the wiki is getting somewhere.

If only we could funnel all this passion and energy from the argument into quality writing and research for the hypothetical wiki...

I'm still debating if we should go ahead or not, but theoretically, it's as soon as I buy it.

If anyone wants to chip in on it, feel free to send me a PM and I'll provide the Paypal address to send it to. I do have enough to buy it outright, so this isn't strictly necessary, but it may help it feel more like "the community got this for the community" rather than "Dark Pulse decided he wanted a wiki."

I'll throw in a few bucks once I'm sure this is actually going forward.

[food]

If only we could funnel all this passion and energy from the argument into quality writing and research for the hypothetical wiki...

Hohoho, should the Wiki be implemented, there will bound to be a "wiki subforum".
O, yes, it shall be the new war zone of BL. Better start building your notebook of "your mom" insults now, because you would need them at hand.

Count on it.

[TypeWannabe]

But...i that happens...will GD serve a purpos anymore?

[Dark Pulse]

I'll throw in a few bucks once I'm sure this is actually going forward.

Community's made it pretty clear they want it; the main question in my mind is if they want everything (which, admittedly, I would prefer) or translation-only (which is, IMO, more of a waste of money). I'm trying to determine if I should make a second poll due to this or not, essentially.

Granted, I think most of the "translations only!" people were trying to argue about how the character pages could be warzones, which is why I tried to think of ways around it, as I really do want it to be a resource for everything, not just a glorified translation forum.

But...i that happens...will GD serve a purpos anymore?

Of course it will. The wiki can't cover everything under the sun.

[mewarmo990]

Yeah, paying money for a new section of the site to host translations on is pointless. We already have a place for that.

It's more like, if there's a wiki, then we can also consider a central place to organize translations.

[Lianru]

I do think that translation only would be easier to manage, but I also agree that it would be nice to have an "everything" wiki, and I'd be willing to put forth effort to maintain it, as long as we could stay away from edit wars every single day. Meaning, I definitely support moderation in the wiki.

[Mike1984]

I do think that translation only would be easier to manage, but I also agree that it would be nice to have an "everything" wiki, and I'd be willing to put forth effort to maintain it, as long as we could stay away from edit wars every single day. Meaning, I definitely support moderation in the wiki.

I don't see a point in having a wiki if it's so heavily-moderated that no-one can actually edit it. Obviously, violent edit wars are bad, but there's nothing wrong with people repeatedly editing the page in order to converge on an acceptable compromise.

[Kyte]

I do think that translation only would be easier to manage, but I also agree that it would be nice to have an "everything" wiki, and I'd be willing to put forth effort to maintain it, as long as we could stay away from edit wars every single day. Meaning, I definitely support moderation in the wiki.

Pretty much this.

I don't see a point in having a wiki if it's so heavily-moderated that no-one can actually edit it.

Why do you assume "any moderation" => "so heavily-moderated that no-one can actually edit it"? It's wrong.

Obviously, violent edit wars are bad, but there's nothing wrong with people repeatedly editing the page in order to converge on an acceptable compromise.

It's completely wrong. "People repeatedly editing pages" IS an edit war. Don't delude yourself, most people don't compromise. You certainly don't.

[Dark Pulse]

I don't see a point in having a wiki if it's so heavily-moderated that no-one can actually edit it. Obviously, violent edit wars are bad, but there's nothing wrong with people repeatedly editing the page in order to converge on an acceptable compromise.

...Except for the fact that causes edit wars.

There are going to be discussion pages for each page I'd presume (like most Wikis) and there's also going to be the Hard/Fanon/Speculation sets as well. Really, before major edits are done to the "core" page, stuff should be speculated out or whatever.

[Kyte]

...Except for the fact that causes edit wars.

There are going to be discussion pages for each page I'd presume (like most Wikis) and there's also going to be the Hard/Fanon/Speculation sets as well. Really, before major edits are done to the "core" page, stuff should be speculated out or whatever.

We can always skip out on discussion pages and just use the forum. Integration, ho!

[Mike1984]

It's completely wrong. "People repeatedly editing pages" IS an edit war. Don't delude yourself, most people don't compromise. You certainly don't.

People repeatedly editing the same thing back into place over and over again is an edit war. People editing the page to be gradually more and more acceptable to both sides with agreement from both parties is not.

We can always skip out on discussion pages and just use the forum. Integration, ho!

The problem with that is that the discussion will get totally buried and people will not realise it even happened....

[Kyte]

People repeatedly editing the same thing back into place over and over again is an edit war. People editing the page to be gradually more and more acceptable to both sides with agreement from both parties is not.

That's not what you described. That's called "normal wiki operation", which nobody has contested.

The problem with that is that the discussion will get totally buried and people will not realise it even happened....

I fail to see how such an scenario would come to happen.

[Mike1984]

That's not what you described. That's called "normal wiki operation", which nobody has contested.

That's what I was talking about....

[food]

Community's made it pretty clear they want it; the main question in my mind is if they want everything (which, admittedly, I would prefer) or translation-only (which is, IMO, more of a waste of money). I'm trying to determine if I should make a second poll due to this or not, essentially.

Granted, I think most of the "translations only!" people were trying to argue about how the character pages could be warzones, which is why I tried to think of ways around it, as I really do want it to be a resource for everything, not just a glorified translation forum.

Of course it will. The wiki can't cover everything under the sun.

Why not run a trial?

Use a free wiki that's available on the Internet, and set it to only allow BL users to edit. And then the members can try creating and editing articles. If everyone proves that they just want to tear each other's throats out, drop the wiki project. If everything hums along smoothly, then we go ahead with the wiki project, and just export whatever articles already created to the new wiki. In the mean time, set aside a subforum for discussion and feedback of how things are running.

It's unwise to drop the cash and then realize this thing will sink like a stone and just increase discourse. Or, it may prove to be not so different from Type Moon wiki and not worth the effort and investment.

We can talk hypothetically in this thread all we want, at the end of the day, it is still all hypothetical. A trial/simulation will speak volumes more than just trying to drown each other with Internet spit.

[mewarmo990]

I do think that translation only would be easier to manage, but I also agree that it would be nice to have an "everything" wiki, and I'd be willing to put forth effort to maintain it, as long as we could stay away from edit wars every single day. Meaning, I definitely support moderation in the wiki.

I don't see a point in having a wiki if it's so heavily-moderated that no-one can actually edit it. Obviously, violent edit wars are bad, but there's nothing wrong with people repeatedly editing the page in order to converge on an acceptable compromise.

Again, you overreact anytime someone mentions "The Man", and misunderstand what she meant by "moderation".

Moderation in a wiki context is meant to prevent vandalism and serious abuse of the site. Like people graffiti-ing entire pages with shit, replacing character portraits with photos of their penises, or repeatedly editing pages without telling anyone, etc.

Normal wiki operation is where users discuss things in the discussion tab before edits are made. They also announce what they are changing and why.

Blah, I'm done here. DP, if it goes forward, just PM me, I'll throw in 5-10 bucks or whatever works for you.

[Dark Pulse]

Why not run a trial?

Use a free wiki that's available on the Internet, and set it to only allow BL users to edit. And then the members can try creating and editing articles. If everyone proves that they just want to tear each other's throats out, drop the wiki project. If everything hums along smoothly, then we go ahead with the wiki project, and just export whatever articles already created to the new wiki. In the mean time, set aside a subforum for discussion and feedback of how things are running.

It's unwise to drop the cash and then realize this thing will sink like a stone and just increase discourse. Or, it may prove to be not so different from Type Moon wiki and not worth the effort and investment.

We can talk hypothetically in this thread all we want, at the end of the day, it is still all hypothetical. A trial/simulation will speak volumes more than just trying to drown each other with Internet spit.

The problem is the Wiki addon is a commercial product. Milbunk already tried his Wiki project and it failed, due to lack of promotion, being off-site, etc. This product would fully integrate with vBulletin. There is a "free" version (as seen here comparing the two versions) but as you can likewise see, the free version is SEVERELY nerfed, to the point that going the pay-for route is really the only sensible choice.

I'm more than willing to plunk down the money because I do think ultimately the "doomsday scenarios" won't come to pass, but I don't want to plunk it down just for a translation-based Wiki - it will wind up way underused for how much money I put into it (unlike the Blogs/CMS package, which while the CMS is sucking dust, the blogs are quite popular - and that was a one-time fee, unlike this). Especially since (unlike vBulletin) it's not "One and done" in terms of upgrades aside from major revisions; this is something I'd have to pay 30-35 bucks for again once the license runs out, if it becomes incompatible with whatever vBulletin version we have and needs to be upgraded.

[Lianru]

But food meant "test for edit wars before buying so you don't waste money", not "use free wiki as new wiki". I think it's a good idea.

Though...why not just use Mil's wiki as a test instead of making a whole new one? It's not like we can't delete all the pages afterwards and I'm sure he wouldn't mind. Plus, there are a couple of BLers on it already.

[Dark Pulse]

You gonna convince most of the people here to sign up just to test how it'd go?

[Mike1984]

But food meant "test for edit wars before buying so you don't waste money", not "use free wiki as new wiki". I think it's a good idea.

Yeah, looking at it, the only features which seem obviously missing from the free version are moderation features (although my knowledge of what people actually need for a wiki is admittedly limited). And, if all we're doing is to test if it'll turn into a horrible mess before paying for it, then I don't see why that's a problem (particularly since the wiki is linked to the forum and, thus, you can always enforce any such moderation by just telling people not to edit it). Provided, of course, we can transfer articles etc. from the free version to the paid version.

Though...why not just use Mil's wiki as a test instead of making a whole new one? It's not like we can't delete all the pages afterwards and I'm sure he wouldn't mind. Plus, there are a couple of BLers on it already.

Because, in the unlikely event that people actually bothered to sign up and use it, then we may as well continue to use Mil's wiki and not bother with a new one....

[Dark Pulse]

Yeah, looking at it, the only features which seem obviously missing from the free version are moderation features (although my knowledge of what people actually need for a wiki is admittedly limited). And, if all we're doing is to test if it'll turn into a horrible mess before paying for it, then I don't see why that's a problem (particularly since the wiki is linked to the forum and, thus, you can always enforce any such moderation by just telling people not to edit it). Provided, of course, we can transfer articles etc. from the free version to the paid version.

Also missing: Categories (So no sorting by series), reusable images (so each article would need new copies of an image), unique page titles, Mini-Articles (Which could be used to give a "Cliff's Notes" style synopsis), Templates (So no generic infoboxes can be made for characters, NPs, concepts, etc - it'd all have to be done by hand on every page), "Books" (which would likely be very useful for translation pages), private pages (ditto), and - as you mentioned - the moderation stuff.

It's more than "just" the moderation features. It's still gimped no matter how you slice it.