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| Alright, thanks. I'll close this poll on Tuesday. Unless it's so one-sided. [[User:Cafinator|Cafinator]] ([[User talk:Cafinator|talk]]) 23:16, 19 August 2008 (UTC) | | Alright, thanks. I'll close this poll on Tuesday. Unless it's so one-sided. [[User:Cafinator|Cafinator]] ([[User talk:Cafinator|talk]]) 23:16, 19 August 2008 (UTC) |
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| == Open Letter: An Outsider Looking In ==
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| Preface: Although I'm an avid SSB player, I'm not a contributor on SmashWiki. However, I do have quite a bit of experience editing and managing wikis, having been involved on both GuildWiki and GuildWarsWiki and having helped to found PvXwiki (where I'm currently a Bureaucrat), and, when it comes to wikis, my primary focus/interest tends to be policy-related and managerial. As such, it should come as no surprise that my interest was piqued when someone on an IRC said, in regard to SmashWiki: "there's one sysop who thinks literally permabanning people is a way to resolve the issue and refuses to acknowledge that half the problem is backlash against his bannings." The discussion that followed (along with another, related discussion on SmashWiki's IRC channel) prompted me to write this "letter." However, before I begin in earnest, I'd like to make it clear that what follows is purely from the perspective of an outsider looking in and, as such, it may not reflect the "whole picture." Thus, if I've neglected anything that could potentially mitigate the following, please, by all means, spell it out for me if necessary.
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| References:
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| *[[User talk:GalaxiaD#Block]]
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| *[http://super-smash-bros.wikia.com/index.php?title=Special%3ALog&type=block&user=&page= Block log]
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| *[[User talk:Kperfekt722#Petitions]], [[User talk:Kperfekt722#OK, THATS TOO MUCH]], and [[User talk:Kperfekt722#Intervention]]
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| *[[User talk:Randall00#Edit warring on SmashWiki:Requests for adminship and general incivility]], [[User talk:Randall00#Explain more]], [[User talk:Randall00#Sockpuppet enquiry]], [[User talk:Randall00#umm]], [[User talk:Randall00#Umm...wtf?]], etc., etc.
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| *"If banned users were valuable, they wouldn't have gotten banned." retrieved from [[User talk:Randall00#User:Shadowcrest/policy]]
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| *"Randall has been doing his damnedest to improve this wiki, so if he gets a little testy about people that he feels undermines the wiki I think he's earned the right to do so." [[User:Clarinet Hawk]]
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| *"Note: Yes, I know I'm strict with rules. Yes, I know I can be a bitch. Please refrain from pissing me off if you want to stay on good terms with me." retrieved from [[User:Silverdragon706]]
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| The links above, taken as a whole, even assuming good faith, i.e. that the bans were deserved, etc. -- which, based on the Block log, may very well ''not'' be the case, paint a disturbing picture, especially when examined by someone who, all self-aggrandizement aside, knows quite a bit about what it takes to administrate a wiki. I’m sure that Randall, etc. are excellent contributors and maybe Galaxia, etc. were really poor faith editors, I don’t really know, nor do I care. Being a good contributor is not anywhere near the same as being a good administrator, and, no matter how bad those bad faith editors were, there’s no question in my mind that the administrators handled themselves poorly, to say the least! I really don’t mean to pick on Randall, but, for example, when you’ve got a sysop who is willing to ban users based on evidence of sockpuppetry that turns out to be faulty, and that same sysop is willing to (from everything I can infer) ban people for disagreeing with him, there’s a problem. When, on top of that, you have permanent bans being thrown about more liberally than I have ‘’ever’’ seen, there’s a ‘’big’’ problem. It’s not even so much the permabans themselves, either, it’s the rapid escalation to permabanning coupled with the fact that permabans have apparently been deemed necessary for, as near as I can tell, rather minor offences (if repeated ones). And another thing, maybe I’m just reading a bit too much into this phenomenon, but it seems like the sysops feel obliged to, when banning someone for, say, a personal attack, specify that the attack was against a sysop as if the mere fact that the recipient of the sysop made a difference. Assuming I’m not merely making mountains out of molehills, so to speak, that trend is perhaps equally disturbing since it runs entirely contrary to the intrinsic nature of wikis.
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| And it’s not only the bans, themselves, that have me worried, it’s the way the sysops are handling themselves with respect to those bans. I’ve seen statements like (these are not quotes), “oh well, he wasn’t a major contributor anyway” or “oh well, the wikidrama that followed sysop x’s ban really wasn’t necessary” used to defend certain administration actions that, if nothing else, toed the line between good faith and outright abuse, and the backlash that inevitably followed. Such statements reflect a horrendous understanding of the way wikis work, particularly the second type which, astoundingly, seems to essentially discount the sysop’s potential culpability for having been the source of the wikidrama. And the “us (sysops) vs. them (the users at large)” mentality that such statements foster and that seems to run rampant throughout SmashWiki is, as near as I can tell, at the heart of most of the problems I’ve noticed. Heck, some of the sysops have seemingly dropped even the façade of civility; I expect to see block caps from trolls, not from sysops. And banning people when they disagree with you (again, that’s how it seems looking at some of these situations from an outsider’s perspective) makes the situation all that much worse. As a very wise person once said, “inability to discuss and reach consensus is a scary thing indeed, especially when the alternative is banbanban.” Indeed, that uncompromising attitude makes it all the more likely that people will disagree, and, even if they do so in a manner that ‘’does’’ deserve a ban, that doesn’t excuse the culpability of the sysop, and it is certainly cause for concern.
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| If the above represented isolated events, that would be one thing, but I have a nagging feeling that there’s a lot more where that came from (and I could have written quite a bit more simply about the things I’ve listed in a great more detail, but, alas, I’ve other things that I need to get done). Equally disturbing is that when I sought answers from an active bureaucrat -- quite possibly the only active bureaucrat -- the responses were vague at best and often seemed designed to exculpate the sysops as much as possible (again, that’s just a perception). I have no stake in the success (or lack thereof) of this wiki; indeed, I sought out answers for no better reason than my own edification. However, whatever comes of this (and, most probably, nothing will), I felt compelled to post; hopefully I’ve given at least some of you cause to pause and reflect on what I’ve said; to be blunt for a moment, a number of other experienced wikieditors and I, were nothing short of astounded by what was going on here, and that opinion reflected the consensus of more than a half-dozen "outsiders," that alone should (hopefully) say something. Regards. [[User:Defiant Elements|Defiant Elements]] 04:42, 21 August 2008 (UTC)
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New Template
I think that we need a template saying that an article needs an image. Or more images than it currently has. Here is a template that I made:
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This article is in need of more or better images
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| If you have a good image for this article, please upload it at Special:Upload
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The bottom of the template will have {{{doc|[[Category:Articles in need of images|{{PAGENAME}}]]}}}
, so that the page will be added to [[Category:Articles in need of images]].
It may need some different wording, and a different image. What do you think?
--Posted by Pikamander2 (Talk) at 17:33, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
- Well, I like the idea, and it is something wikipedia does. Let's just be careful that the images that get added are relevant and good quality. Also, we don't need six different pictures of the same attack hitting different characters on different stages. Clarinet Hawk (talk · contributions) 15:18, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
So, should I go ahead and make the template? --Posted by Pikamander2 (Talk) at 13:44, 11 August 2008 (UTC)
- This is not the place to discuss potential new templates, this is the talk page for the Main Page. That said, the colors on the template make it pretty unreadable. I don't like the idea of using colors for the sake of making things colorful; we should have a system like Wikipedia where the colors associated with each template have some sort of meaning (distinguishing, for example, "this article can be enhanced" vs. "this article is lacking important details" vs. "this article is factually incorrect") --Kirby King 00:47, 18 August 2008 (UTC)
Spelling
Hi. I'd just like to comment about the spelling on the main page. The main page is the first thing new visitors see when they enter this site. If many words are spelled incorrectly, the new visitor may already have a bad impression of the site. I'm talking about the "Note to all Users" section, in which many words are spelled wrong. I'm just asking that when you edit the main page, make sure you spell words right. Thanks! swannie 
talk 02:49, 31 July 2008 (UTC)
- Here's a idea: Next time actually say what words are misspelled. Oh, and last time I check one is not equal to many. Clarinet Hawk (talk · contributions) 19:06, 31 July 2008 (UTC)
- You also spelled "Temporarily" wrong. Sorry for any confusion, not trying to start a fight. swannie talk 02:47, 1 August 2008 (UTC)
Featured Article (Pikachu)
It says he's the only Pokemon aside from Jigglypuff to appear in all three games, but Charizard did, too. JalYt-Xil-Vimescarrot 08:58, 6 August 2008 (UTC)
- Charizard isn't playable until Brawl. That was the point of the comment. Clarinet Hawk (talk · contributions) 13:13, 6 August 2008 (UTC)
- Okay. But it quite clearly says appear; nothing about playability. As it is now, it's wrong. JalYt-Xil-Vimescarrot 14:44, 6 August 2008 (UTC)
A Poll
Cafinator votes for a playful poll on the front page.
<poll>
Should the front page have a poll?
Yes
No
IRONY
</poll>
I think a poll would be good. It could be serious, funny, informative, etc. Like on the GTA wiki they have a poll and one of the questions is "ARe you going to buy GTA 4 for the computer?" and gives more than yes or no. So that's just an example. Smorekingxg456 (talk) 23:14, 19 August 2008 (UTC)
Alright, thanks. I'll close this poll on Tuesday. Unless it's so one-sided. Cafinator (talk) 23:16, 19 August 2008 (UTC)
