Revision as of 08:08, 5 April 2010

Wiki Police

We won't come lock you up!

But, none the less, a few nifty ideas for you to consider in your pages...

1. Use minor edits on stuff that you don't want everyone to see. Try to avoid filling up the recent events page with multiple entries on the same update, if you can avoid it. Slip-ups are okay, we all forget now and again, but it makes the page a lot more easy to read at a glance.
2. If you can, it's greatly appreciated by many Wiki users if you Log In before making any major edits, or before editing pages that aren't yours. Click on the Preferences link at the bottom of every Wiki page to do so. This will attach your username to your edits so that anyone looking at them can tell who did them; it will also attach your username to the edits which show up on RecentChanges so that people can tell at a glance who's been doing what.

What a good idea for a page!\\ Think you should link here from the SandBox?\\ ~ Shataina\\ PS: It occurs to me that a less hostile name might be more welcoming ... "police" sounds so angry! :)

The glut of useless UserPages grates on me to some degree. I don't want to tell people "don't make a page if you don't have anything interesting to add," but that'd almost work better. There are far too many people who have put up one sentence about how they're going to add a bunch of stuff in a little bit, and then just vanish. Alas. I think a more decentralized format would work better, creating generally more unified, less user-centric contributions -- not that I don't like the personal touch UserPages add. _Jabberwocky

How about we set aside a chunk of the UserPages list for 'Active participants'. Give everyone a week or two to move the link to their page to the Active participants subheading, then archive everyone else. DS

Well I have to say being one that has just join and has put up something to the effect of what Jabberwocky dislikes and the reason I have is that I found this page while at college and working on a thesis at the same time so my updates and ability to have good content to put up for everyone enjoy may have spans of time between them since I have other things to take care of first. So while I'm sure there are those that have taken their page for granted, I'd hope that the consideration of the those with busy lives are taken into consideration if such an action occures. --KaleUtterdark

If you just joined up, it's not such an issue. But, when you have the chance, make a comparison in your head of the number of people who have user pages, and the number of people that are active on the Wiki. A lot of people treat the User Page almost like a Guest book, making it more difficult to locate the actual content. DS

Agreed. No slight intended to active members /w less-than-active UserPages. _Jabberwocky

I'll add as one of those less-than-active people (although I do have two links up on my page, for them interested in my stuff) that I post stuff largely as I think it up; one problem is I'm currently running a game so I have to hold off on some of my best ideas because my players read the Wiki too. :) - AliasiSudonomo

Hmm...maybe I should get back into the active participation myself. I still throw stuff up on my user page, and I do add my own stuff to the communal areas, but I rarely seem to read or comment on other people's posts as of late. Time to jusp back on the wiki wagon. -EndlessChase

Yes, EndlessChase, and you should rejoin the Lexicon too! <chants: Lexicon Lexicon Lexicon> <cough> Ahem.\\ Why don't we just make a section for UserPages which actually have links on them (i.e. actual content other than "Hi, I'm X"), and a section for UserPages that don't? Do you think that'd be better, Jabberwocky?\\ ~ Shataina

It's probably a good start, yeah. Ideally, everything on a UserPage would be ghosted in non-user-specific directories, making a user's page more a personal disambiguation link than a neccessary foundation for finding their submissions, though that is not (and will not be) the case. And as it's not the case, any page with links on it is potentially useful to someone, if only to make sure all submissions are noted, though I have a hard time suggesting any page with a single artifact posted on it should be highlighted as, say Willows' and Iks' hubs.

Perhaps three categories -- for active, 'has something on it\occasionally updated', and 'inactive\unworthy\all but nothing.' Someone else could decide on politically correct names. _Jabberwocky

I started splitting it up today. Basically, I put all the stuff that has no original links whatsoever on the bottom, and everything else on the top. I'd vote for there being a third category which is pages with links, but only links that lead off-Wiki. And maybe a fourth, of UserPages which have been inactive for say, 3+ months.\\ ~ Shataina