Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-116693-20130624201511/@comment-4712589-20130624234811

Foman123 wrote: I like the idea of creating our own CSS scheme for use on the merged wiki, but disagree that the Destinypedia front page is cluttered. It contains 12 links (along with touch-screen-friendly buttons) that provide users with the ability to fast-access all content on the wiki from one place. For users that want to stick around on the front page longer and see what the wiki is all about, there's a bit more information and some additional links to access full articles. It's important to keep in mind what purposes most people use wikis for, and I'm not a big fan of cluttering front pages or trying to pack all of the information possible onto a landing page. It's better to have it simple, clean, and focused to allow users to move on to the content they really want to access.

I say we create our own CSS theme then. I'll be more than happy to work on this as soon as we iron out all the creases. It's best to have a new theme for when we merge, that way everyone will recognise there's been a change.

Foman123 wrote: Regarding policies, I'm good with using the policies written for destiny.wikia but I think they need to be consolidated, shortened, and simplified. When policies/rules documents are too long, they hurt rather than help. I imagine as things scale up, policies will come more into play, but one of the things I've learned in managing several very large online communities is that the vast majority of users never read policy pages except to try to get themselves OUT of trouble. Policy pages are helpful for administrators, moderators, and heavy contributors, but our time is limited and we shouldn't spend too much time worrying about vast reams of policies at the expense of other more important things.

Regarding administration, I imagine that there will likely be a few places where we butt heads. Hell, even with only two of us here on Destinypedia.wikia, Arbitor and I occasionally disagree about some things. As a result, I propose that we establish a "separation of powers" of sorts, where only one of us is the final decisionmaker on any particular subject. If we don't do this, there are bound to be sticking points where opinions simply can't be changed, and we don't want progress to be held up because of this.

You couldn't be more right, people don't read policies unless they are attempting to get out of trouble. That's why they are usually so long and intricate, not for the average user's benefit by for the administrators. It allows administrators to return to the policy and use it as evidence against a troublesome user when they are attempting fight back against a punishment; it's a sort of safety net for admins so they can say "Hey look, the policy has said that you can't do this the whole time. You should have read it at the beginning". Of course, the aim isn't to attempt to bait and trap people though, so when all the policies are finished, there's usually a simplified rule set that has all the rules in one page in a short and easy to follow manner for the average user, and then all the complex policies are where the rules have been expanded for security reasons.

With regards to the administration however, it's never good to have a final decision maker, many wikis have had that in the past and descended into chaos. The key to the success of a wiki is through consensus. Most admins go through and make changes without need to discuss with others, but during big events such as this one, it's best to hold a vote and work on the majority wins factor - with some common sense and discussion thrown in. It's also good to get the community involved in a lot of non-admin issues, such as promoting a user or a theme changes. In places where consensus reaches a stalemate, the tendency is that you stick to the norm. So if someone wanted to change the theme but the votes sway 50/50, you keep the theme as it is and then try to change it again another time after some more work.

Foman123 wrote: Behind only quality and volume of content, site navigation is the most important element of a wiki. Users need to be able to find what they're looking for, discover all-new information that they weren't looking for, and, importantly, find things that they were "looking for but didn't even know it." IMO, the best way to facilitate this information discovery on a wiki is a complex and interconnected system of categories and diligent category management. Destinypedia, I think, has done a nice job with category management and I'd like to see this stick around. In addition, the front page of any wiki should be clean, immediate, and easily navigable for all users. Destinypedia's front page is designed to be both PC and mobile-friendly, and essentially all content on the entire wiki can be accessed from those 12 buttons on the front page. This is another trait I'd like to see continue over to the merged site.

We think alike here then. The main issue I had with Halo Nation was the categorisation, it was really poorly laid out. But now that we have 8,000 articles it's a near impossibility to correct. I designed a robust category system for Destiny Wiki too, so I guess we could look at each others and compare. (Who knows, they might even be the same haha?!)

Foman123 wrote: I'm a stickler for proper English, consistent writing styles, and flawless grammar/spelling. I'll admit it, I can be a bit pushy when it comes to this. When it comes to citations and references, I like a more Wikipedia-style, disciplined footnote and references system, but it's really all kind of moot; a complicated footnotes and references system is just going to be confusing for new users, a pain for admins, and will be largely useless for the vast, vast majority of articles created for a game wiki once the game is launched. For now, I'm okay with sources merely being cited at the bottom of the article without having to go through the pain of creating and double-checking references.

Either way, the citation system at the moment is far from the norm and just as confusing for users who are used to the wikia style referencing. It's a pain to have something done with the fashion I've explained, but that's what the community and the admins are here for. We educate the community how to do it so that the admins don't need to go back and sort it all the time. A lot of the time people simply won't reference something and it will end up being admins doing it anyway. I promise you, it's not as large a task as you think. All other wikis do it and the most successful wikis have the best citation systems - there's a strong correlation.