Proposal: More organization

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Raijinili

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I propose for the wiki:
- A place for general Bulbapedia:Discussion, linked to from the side bar. This makes it easier for new and otherwise unknowledgeable users to start a discussion. Yes, they can make a forum account, but I said "easier". Forcing people to make an account when there's plenty of room in the software to make discussions most relevant to the wiki on the wiki, especially when much of that discussion is already on the wiki, is just making things needlessly hard. Besides, putting it mostly in one place also gives you only one place to check, and thus there will probably be more people than on regular talk pages.
- A "Bulbapedia:Template request" page, so that people don't need to ask admins to make their templates, and so that it's all in one place for the experienced template makers to do something about.
- Turning on subpages for the Bulbapedia namespace (http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:$wgNamespacesWithSubpages). I can't think of a reason not to do so, though I can think of a reason otherwise (http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/w...d_nominations_for_administratorship/MAGNEDETH).

It seemed there was more when I thought of this topic.
 
OK for one:
-Forums are easily to have discussions on, because there is no edit conflicts, no wiki coding, and it wont clog up some sort of Recent Changes page etc. and a link can be found right on the sidebar as "Bulbawiki Forum.
-Second, We already have that. Its called Bulbapedia:Sandbox and users can have their own Sandboxes to play around with templates, pages and wiki codes.
-Third, that would be confusing, having subpages for the namespace. It is a good idea though.
 
  1. General discussion is supposed to go in this forum. That is why it is named the Bulbapedia General Forum. The reason for this to to lower the number of talk page edits being made over anything and everything.
  2. If someone wants to play around to make a template, there is the sandbox. If they don't want to learn, why is it so bad to go to an admin's talk page? I'm quite sure the majority of our experienced users have the majority of admin talk pages on their watchlists.
  3. The Bulbapedia namespace does have subpage support... That is why the archived admin nominations, like this one are at page names like this. So, I don't see what you're trying to suggest on this one.
 
Clarky said:
-Forums are easily to have discussions on, because there is no edit conflicts, no wiki coding, and it wont clog up some sort of Recent Changes page etc. and a link can be found right on the sidebar as "Bulbawiki Forum.
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Talk pages already do most of what you're complaining about, including clogging up Recent Changes, and you can check Recent Changes for just one namespace.

I'm mostly talking about centralizing Talk:, which already exists. Also, having to register and stay signed in on two different sites must be a bit harder than the admins had thought, since you two have made less than 200 total posts between you.
Kogoro said:
General discussion is supposed to go in this forum. That is why it is named the Bulbapedia General Forum. The reason for this to to lower the number of talk page edits being made over anything and everything.
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Yes, I know that it's "supposed to" go in this forum. You can't propose a new standard if it already exists.

Why is it necessary to lower the number of talk edits and raise the number of forum posts, and forum registrations that probably get abandoned rather quickly?
Clarky said:
-Second, We already have that. Its called Bulbapedia:Sandbox and users can have their own Sandboxes to play around with templates, pages and wiki codes.
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You misunderstand my request. It's not a sandbox to test templates, it's a place where you ask others to make templates you think Bulbapedia needs, and a place to request modification of protected templates (I didn't say this before). Centralization => quicker response time, more people looking who should be looking.
Kogoro said:
# If someone wants to play around to make a template, there is the sandbox. If they don't want to learn, why is it so bad to go to an admin's talk page? I'm quite sure the majority of our experienced users have the majority of admin talk pages on their watchlists.
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What does "Template request" mean to you? Does it mean "Place to play around to make a template"?

Posting such requests on admin talk pages is, for one, unorganized, and second, if they are truly being made by other users, then the admins have their talk pages clogged up with situations they don't have to deal with. Of course, this happens anyway, but this proposal is one way to alleviate that problem.
Kogoro said:
# The Bulbapedia namespace does have subpage support... That is why the archived admin nominations, like this one are at page names like this. So, I don't see what you're trying to suggest on this one.
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Well, it's because I know the difference between "subpage support" and "being able to put slashes in an article's name". The former needs to be turned on for some namespaces, and the later is always on.

Subpage support means backlinks, for one:
http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Subpages/subpage

===

Edit: I just remembered Bulbapedia:Spading. This and this is an example of the usefulness of centralization.
 
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I suppose a bit of explanation is in order, about why we're so pushy on using this forum for both the social and advanced technical aspects of Bulbapedia.

With respect to the social aspect, the Wiki is fundamentally not designed for prolonged social discussion. The forums have a better interface for user-to-user interaction, can foster better community discussion, and have a better moderation structure. Further, that could encourage mixing between the Bulbapedia and BMGf communities--something we see as a Very Good Thing.

With respect to the technical aspect, the vast majority of contributing users on Bulbapedia are already on the forums. I forget the exact statistics, but something likee 80% or 90% of the active Bulbapedians (that is, making active edits, not just browsing) have accounts on BMGf. There simply isn't much of an issue here...our serious users, who make major contributions, are internet-savvy. They also don't mind having multiple accounts in multiple places. There are ways to merge account registration, but we'd have a tough time dealing with duplicate account names not owned by the same person (i.e., something like PikachuFan could be troublesome, although I don't know if it's registered on either the forums or 'pedia--just as an example.)

Anyway, I hope this informs this discussion.
 
While people like Clarky, Kogoro and I generally hang out on Bulbapedia, staff members and most users generally check the forums at least once a day.
 
Personally, I find the wiki more relevant to itself, and the forum's large userboxes, and sometimes sigs, are like speedbumps to my eyes.

I think making it easier for editors to post potentially good suggestions is a priority over having an overall better community, but I can accept that the administration disagrees.

However, I still stand by the "Centralization" point. For example, many users post concerns on admin talk pages which can be, and are, addressed by nonadmins, and this proposal will probably do a great deal to keep that more organized.

What about the other two proposals? Template requests (including protected edits) are much better suited to the wiki, and the silence (two template requests) on the sticky speaks for itself.
 
Is there an overwhelming demand for templates on the 'pedia, either? I see where that could be easily accomplished on a designated page, although I'm not particularly wedded to any school of thought on this issue. If we wanted to designate a specific spot for template requests, I don't see why that can't be done, although I suspect advertising the forum thread would have a similar effect.

The other one...I don't see what specific purpose that'd serve, but again, I'm not opposed to it.
 
Templates are currently an active target of improvement, according to this. I was also concerned about a single place to put protected requests, as they may be lost in the RecentChanges log without the relevant people seeing them. And it's just less jarring not to have to switch back and forth between darker green and lighter green pages.

As for subpages, there are projects pages besides the Admin noms which are being made as if they expected subpages to work, and I don't see why they shouldn't work if they help navigation and slashes aren't being used for anything else.
 
Improvement, yes. Not new ones. But redoing the old ones. Which is done on subpages before going mainspace so we don't have to edit them 39 million times because someone put a switch statement wrong. Then talk paging it on the template or bringing it to the attention of one of the higher-ups.

Whether I like it or not, it doesn't matter if we had a template request page, because everyone would come to me anyway.
 
Using the forums (we even have a template request thread here) isn't that bad. I was resistant to making an account for a while, but once I did, everything was pretty streamlined.

It is extremely aggravating, however, when someone--especially an administrator--doesn't pay attention to both the forums and the 'pedia at once. I've seen more than one situation develop because someone hadn't read a certain forum thread.
 
TTE: I imagined the page to be mostly for requests by people who don't necessarily know how to write the code themselves, and for protected pages. Right now the best way to get that kind of change is to ask an admin on a talk page, which is silly. Better to have it all in one place.

Also, what was the result of the discussion?

Martonimos: As I thought I pointed out (but can't find where I did), the template request thread has had only a few templates requested over the years.
 
A template Request page makes more work for experienced users and admins, and it wont teach new users to wiki code at all. Its best they learn it themselves.
 
Raijinili said:
Martonimos: As I thought I pointed out (but can't find where I did), the template request thread has had only a few templates requested over the years.
Click to expand...

...so? It still exists, and if people want to request templates, that's where they should do it.
 
I don't know, I just thought it would be a good idea to make it easier for the wiki to be improved, for some reason.
 
Please note: The thread is from 17 years ago.
Please take the age of this thread into consideration in writing your reply. Depending on what exactly you wanted to say, you may want to consider if it would be better to post a new thread instead.
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