Difference between revisions of "LGPedia:Lucy's Balcony"

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(okay, buckshot's staying, jumper's done, and we have new category names . . . moved to Archives)
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Well, first I think we should get rid of any sections that are covered in other places (ie: Daniels relationship section and Jonas's fan activity section) and just put links to them at the bottom with the theory links. EDIT: I have made a fake Daniel page [[User:Nancypants/sandbox|here]] so if anyone has ideas please feel free to mess around and change things, it's just my sandbox. [[User:Nancypants|Nancypants]] 20:36, 13 March 2008 (CDT)
 
Well, first I think we should get rid of any sections that are covered in other places (ie: Daniels relationship section and Jonas's fan activity section) and just put links to them at the bottom with the theory links. EDIT: I have made a fake Daniel page [[User:Nancypants/sandbox|here]] so if anyone has ideas please feel free to mess around and change things, it's just my sandbox. [[User:Nancypants|Nancypants]] 20:36, 13 March 2008 (CDT)
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== Written policies needed: Disputing edits & commenting etiquette ==
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On [[LGPedia talk:Deletion Policy#Lesser Deletion Policy|two]] [[Talk:Recovered Memory#a + b = c|occasions]] in the past two weeks, the way we deal with disputed edits came into question. '''As such, I feel it is necessary to, once and for all, write an official policy on how to correctly oppose a revision, and how each side has to behave.''' This policy ''has'' to be signed and endorsed by the administration, in order to give it the necessary authority.
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'''My POV:'''<br>
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In my opinion, the commonly accepted, now disputed policy is the only practical and logical one: ''Do what the majority wants.''<br>
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The main question of the disputes was, whether to leave the disputed edit standing and have the disputing side argue why it should be reverted, or to revert to the original version and discuss the changes. In my opinion, it is obvious the latter has to be done, due to the following reasoning:
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Let us first take a look at how an edit can commonly turn out:
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#The edit is made, and nobody disputes it. This suggests the community agrees with the edit.
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#The edit is made, and somebody reverts it.
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##In the discussion following, the community agrees with the edit, and the change is reinstated.
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##In the discussion following, the community disagrees with the edit, and the revert is upheld.
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The important part for my reasoning is #1 - no dispute. A certain state of a page can only exist if nobody disputed it. Thus, by the very logic of the concept of community based editing, the original version of the page, the one that is being edited, is a version that was accepted as "usable", "okay" or "fitting" by the community in the past, up to the point until the disputed change was made. The original version can thus be assumed as a ''community accepted revision'', in the sense that the ''majority'' of the community saw no reason to change it, or at least saw no reason to propose the disputed change.
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Now let us watch how a dispute would go under the different systems:
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{|style="border: 1px solid #bbbbbb; background-color: #FAFAFA;"
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!style="background: #B8D1EF;"|Common process
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!style="background: #B8D1EF;"|Proposed process
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|-
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|style="background: #EAEAEA;"|''Page status: {{color|green|Community Accepted Revision}}''
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|style="background: #EAEAEA;"|''Page status: {{color|green|Community Accepted Revision}}''
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|-
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|An edit is made
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|An edit is made
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|-
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|style="background: #EAEAEA;"|''Page status: {{color|red|Unverified Revision}}''
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|style="background: #EAEAEA;"|''Page status: {{color|red|Unverified Revision}}''
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|-
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|The edit gets reverted
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|Somebody disputes the edit on a talk page, explaining why it is not a valid contribution to the page, but is not allowed to revert.
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|-
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|style="background: #EAEAEA;"|''Page status: {{color|green|Community Accepted Revision}}''
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|style="background: #EAEAEA;"|''Page status: {{color|red|Unverified Revision}}''
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|-
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|The editor disputes the revert on a talk page, outlining why his change should be committed, but is not allowed to revert.
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|
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|-
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|style="background: #EAEAEA;"|''Page status: {{color|green|Community Accepted Revision}}''
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|style="background: #EAEAEA;"|''Page status: {{color|red|Unverified Revision}}''
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|-
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|Discussion
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|Discussion
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|-
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|style="background: #EAEAEA;"|''Page status: {{color|green|Community Accepted Revision}}''
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|style="background: #EAEAEA;"|''Page status: {{color|red|Unverified Revision}}''
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|-
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|Decision of the majority - either commit the change, or leave as is.
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|Decision of the majority - accept new revision, or revert.
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|-
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|style="background: #EAEAEA;"|''Page status: {{color|green|Community Accepted Revision}}''
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|style="background: #EAEAEA;"|''Page status: {{color|green|Community Accepted Revision}}''
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|}
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At first, the processes seems very similar, and the proposed process, as QtheC put it, "encourages addition of content and pushes the discussion toward justifying removal, rather than justifying addition.". However, this does not take into account two very important facts:
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#'''The revision status during discussion.'''<br>As visible above, during the discussion in the common process, the page is always held on a community accepted revision, whereas, in the new process, the page stays on the disputed status. In other words, during the common process, the page stays in a revision that nobody in the community but the editor deems "wrong" in any way, while, in the new process, the page stays in a revision that the community has not verified yet, and, in fact, got disputed immediately after it was submitted.
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#'''Valuing addition higher than removal.'''<br>This is simply ''wrong''. There is no reason to assume that an addition is always better than a removal. Removing confusing, incorrect or otherwise irrelevant content can clear up and improve a page considerably, while adding only marginally related, badly formatted or phrased or even irrelevant content can confuse readers and significantly diminish a page's quality.<br>What should be evaluated is the ''change'' itself, not whether the nature of the change was an addition or removal. LGPedia does ''not'' per se advocate addition of content. It advocates ''improvement'' of content. In most cases, this means addition, yes. But it can very well mean removal, and it is ludicrous to assume that an addition is by default better than a removal.
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To return to the process:
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*In the common process, the community accepted revision is upheld, the community discusses a change to the community accepted revision, and, by this discussion, creates a new community accepted revision - be it one that includes the proposed change, or one that expressedly excludes it.
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*In the proposed process, the rogue user's unverified revision is upheld, and the community has to live with an actively disputed revision until it proves that it really, really doesn't like this change.
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What does this mean practically?
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#It is reasonable to assume that the community accepted revision has a certain standard: It has a certain level of visual appeal, the phrasing is alright, and so on. The unverified revision may have been disputed exactly because that is ''not'' the case. In the common process, the community accepted, regularly patrolled page stays out for everyone to see. In the proposed process, the potentially erroneous and typo-laden revision stays out for everyone to see.
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#Significant changes could be forced upon the community. Take my proposed [[User:Renegade/Portal:Lonelygirl15|Portal:Lonelygirl15 redesign]], for example. Following the new process, I could simply install it and ''the entire rest of the community'' would have to justify reverting the change, instead of just reverting it and telling me "we did not approve this yet, kthx". Now, I like to think that my portal redesign is not all that bad, but remember that this policy is for everyone - by tomorrow, you could find yourself arguing about a horrible 1995-looking table-based layout that includes the entire plot of lonelygirl15 on the [[Main Page]].<br>And you couldn't just revert it. Policy would say you'd have to discuss the revert first.
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#Think of the following question: What if the number of discussing people is rather small? In the common process, if people actually adhered to it instead of edit-waring their revision back in (the person I mean knows exactly who he his), the community accepted revision would be upheld even if there was only one "defender" against the editor. The editor would actively have to show the community backs his change before he could push it through. In the proposed process, one single editor is enough to force a significant change through, and now the "defender" has to go out and inform people the page has been violated and actually has to gather support just to ''return'' to a state that everybody backs.
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#Lastly, it is simply a question of common courtesy and "burden of proof" type of thinking - if somebody wants to make a change to a page, that person should be ready to prove that his change is "right" or "makes sense". It should not be required for the majority of the community to go to the talk page and prove the editor wrong, just to get the page they already agreed to back.<br>Community backing for a change should be secured ''before'' the change is made - not afterwards.
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In the end, I can't help but think that the proposed process was proposed exactly ''because'' it allows to force rogue edits down the community's throat - because, one must not forget that the common process does not exist to stop changes - it just requires community backing to make them. In the discussions that spawned these proposals, that community backing was lacking. Several times, it was ''one person'' arguing for several days without support from others, but still trying to force their will upon the entire rest of the communtiy. It is obvious how these users would gain an advantage from the proposed process.
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Let me reiterate this: If someone makes a disputed, reverted edit, and can provide a reasonable explanation for the change, the community ''will'' back him, and the majority ''will'' reinstate the change even if the "defender" is of differing opinion. '''If a change finds support by the majority, the common process does not stop it.''' It just requires the ''undisputed'' revision to stay while the discussion is running, and that the ''change'' is justified, not the ''already accepted'' revision.
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Also note that, in 90% of all cases, consent is automatically given by the fact that nobody disputes an edit. The large majority of edits on LGPedia does not get disputed. No matter how this text sounds on first glance, the common process does ''not'' require every single change to be largely justified. It just requires changes to be justified should they get disputed.
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----
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Independent from this, I would like to have a policy on talk page threads, specifically outlining the following points:
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*Indention
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*Destruction of other user's posts
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The former is something I regularly see in discussions - people seem to be entirely unaware of how to use indention to signify who they're replying to, regularly jumping back to the grandparent level without a note or connection to the grandparent post. This is not only annoying to read, but also destroys the flow of discussion, and thus confuses readers.
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The latter is something platy does, in particular, and something I consider highly inappropriate: Placing replies to sub-points of a comment directly ''inside'' of the original comment.<br>
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If I have written a post, that is ''my'' post, and nobody has the right to change it except with my consent. It forms a union. Had I wanted to break it up and intermit it with comments, I'd have done that when I wrote it.<br>
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We have a quote template. Especially I myself have demonstrated in the past how to use it to reply to select subpoints of previous posts. As such, ''there is no justification to alter someone else's post without consent''.<br>
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I would like the talk page rules to specifically state that replies are to be made in a new, separate, independent post, without modifying the original post.
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:~ [[User:Renegade|Renegade]] ([[User talk:Renegade|talk]] | [[Special:Contributions/Renegade|contribs]]) 20:26, 4 April 2008 (CDT)
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<small>P.S.: I am aware that I have followed platy's style in the recent discussion(s) - as you can see, I pointed out how impolite and inappropriate his behavior was multiple times, but he didn't listen. I had no other choice but to follow him in order to stay in the discussion, and since my posts had already been violated, it didn't make much difference. Still, I am very displeased with this behavior. My posts are mine and the only people who should be allowed to edit it without my consent are administrators.</small>

Revision as of 01:26, 5 April 2008

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This talk page contains one or more discussions that have not yet been resolved. Feel free to add your own comment to these discussion(s) or remove this template once the discussion(s) have been resolved. The discussion(s) are Revamping FanFic , Character Pages Discussion.
A couple of LGPedia admins (Jonpro & Phoenician) take a breather to admire the view from Lucy's Balcony.
Zoey, one of your LGPedia admins, frolics with the doves on Lucy's Balcony.


Welcome to Lucy's Balcony, a place to ask questions or discuss general issues about the LGPedia. This page is intended to be a place where admins and active editors can discuss ongoing issues, ideas and concerns. To start a new thread, click here. Please remember to sign your posts by typing ~~~~ at the end.

For old or inactive conversations, visit Lucy's archive.



Video Dates In Pages

This is not a critical issue, but something worth discussion. At this point we are 18 months into the lg15 series. There are areas of Lg15 plot which were very important at certain points (like LaRezisto, or Gemma, or Tachyon), that later resolved or become less important. When viewing pages which discuss key character or plot issues (like Gemma, or Spencer, or the Order of Denderah, etc.), I myself find it useful to know when the videos about that subject were released, without having to click on every video link. I think in a chronological way. Thus, I sometimes put video dates into an lgpedia article to let readers easily know when something occurred in the context of the whole storyline. Like, for Ted McKinley i put it "He first appeared at the press conference filmed in What's Going on? (Oct. 19, 2007), where he helped ...". That way the reader easily knows, ok, this Ted guy is not relevant to the first year of the show.

We have no set convention for dealing with this issue that I am aware of, and wondered whether we should set one. I am not saying that every video link needs a date after it like a legal brief would cite cases, but there are articles where it would be useful. (For example, The order article has them; Emma does not). Even if we don't come up with any policy, I wanted to raise the issue for people to think about when editing. Thoughts? --Milowent 08:19, 20 December 2007 (CST)

Revamping FanFic

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Discussion has been moved.
Please continue the discussion here: The Mighty FanFic Revamp: Part Deux

The "Plan"

Right now, I think we are faced with a situation where the LGPedia has become overloaded with fan fiction pages and this is a problem. Now, don't get me wrong, I am absolutely not saying that fan fiction pages on the pedia are bad. Quite the opposite, I'm saying that I think they're good! But with the massive amounts of scattered info we have now, I think we are making it much harder for anyone to really understand what's going on. We also have a lot of extraneous pages, (like video transcripts for obscure series that do not add value to the section on that series) which ultimately only overwhelms anyone who comes here to learn more about a fanfic series.

So, what I propose is this. I think that we should do a massive cleanup of the fanfic section of the site. I think that instead of treating the section as a free-for-all, we should try to get some sort of streamlined guide to just how each series will be treated.

The Types

I think we should divide the fanfic up into five types as far as how we deal with them:

Type 1 - These series get a single page similar to the current Lonelyjew15 page. They consist of one page where all the information you'd need to get an understanding of the series is found. The main things that show up on these pages are plot summary, character info, and important links for watching and following the story more closely. There can be other sections, such as a "Notes" section, but mostly the pages should follow the same general format. The page will serve as a "run-down" to the series it covers.

Type 2 - Unlike Type 1 series, Type 2 series will all be collected together on one massive page where each series will have its own description. Most of the time the descriptive info on these series is similar to what is contained in a Type 1 series, but to a lesser extent.

Type 3 - Like with any rule, there can and probably will be exceptions. What would go on these pages would be determined on an "as needed" basis.

Type 4 - This type covers any major relevant ARGs or series. Since series in this type tend to be complex, they often will require more than one page. Cassieiswatching and redearth88 are great examples of this. Because of the large-scale undertaking of these series, this type will have to be admin approved before they can go forward.

Type 5 - There are some series that simply don't belong on the LGPedia at all (adult film entertainment, anyone? :)). These ones do not need pages.

Qualifying

I think each series needs to be examined individually to determine where it best fits within the above types. A strong case should have to be made regarding why any particular series should receive a type of page. Some good reasons would be: number of subscribers, average number of views per video, notibility in the Breeniverse, and many more. Because of this, I believe we should evaluate each series independantly.

If the idea takes off, I'm happy to create a page where we can discuss statuses for each series. I'm not going to do that now though, because I want to make sure people are on board for the idea first.

Hopefully you guys like this idea, and hopefully you are on board with it! I truly believe it will do wonders for both getting more editors (who now mostly sit befuddled, wondering how to add such elaborate fanfic pages) and for getting new viewers for fanfic series, as viewers will be less confused when the content is laid out in a neat fashion. Please let me know what you think!!! --Zoey 02:57, 21 December 2007 (CST)

Comments

Yes, I made a section for comments, this would be too confusing otherwise, lol. --Zoey 02:57, 21 December 2007 (CST)
Well, if there's one project to rocket us to 2008, it would be this. Everything above sounds like a great starting point. To clarify, videos must be fiction, yes, in order to qualify for the above types. They can't just be a LG/KM fan responding, commenting, or spoofing (of course, if they've made themselves into an in-universe fictional character then that's different). I don't know, I just get the feeling that we're going to have to be painstakenly detailed in our discussions in the matter :P --Pheon 03:09, 21 December 2007 (CST)

Since I've been trying to get rid of the fan-series mess ever since I joined, I of course support this motion, but I'd like rules on series template creation to be included, i.e. whether your "Type 4" series should get their own blog- and other templates, or if they should use stuff like FakeBlog. I don't quite feel like eliminating another dozen uselessly created, outdated fan blog templates.
It should also be possible to create a Template:FanCharBlock, that simply takes a page and styling options as arguments - so you'd have one fan-char-block template, and the contents would be located at pages like Redearth88/charblock.
I do think your typification scale is counterintuitive, though - imo, it should be an ascending or descending scale, e.g.
Level 0 No pages or, alternatively, Tier 1 Full coverage
Level 1 Single page, few information descending instead of Tier 2 Tier 3 Exceptions
Level 2 Single page, comprehensive information ascending Tier 3 Single page, comprehensive information
Level 3 Level 2 exceptions Tier 4 Single page, few information
Level 4 Full coverage Tier 5 No pages
No matter how we name a series's grade, we have to find an acceptable way to rate them that doesn't look like pure arbitrariness to the community...something with hard data, like combined viewcount of the first twenty videos or something, with no chance to be selected before the series reaches at least twenty vids (unless it ends before that).
Beyond that, I suggest creating a Portal:Community, or use the existing (unused and barely known) LGPedia:Community Portal page to create a portal similar to the series ones, which only reports about Tier 1/Level 5/Type 4 series - like new Redearth videos released, link to series mainpages and similar things.
And more or less independent from that, the topic of spoofs that Pheon brought up is interesting...although I agree that mere replies should (of course) not be listed, certain spoofs should at least be collected on a central "LG15 Spoofs" page or something similar (or do we have something like that already?) - because especially milo's recent works are quite funny and deserve long-term exposure.
~ Renegade (talk | contribs) 18:07, 21 December 2007 (CST)

Let me just clarify, this discussion is JUST for fanfic SERIES and how they will be treated on the pedia. Any discussion about what to do about it after the fact is arbitrary at this point, as creating a portal cannot happen unless we have some sort of focus. If we want to create a portal, or any other means of featuring the fanfic AFTER THE FACT, that discussion should take place after the fact. So let's please not discuss that at this time.

Also, I agree that there are many notable spoof videos and other notable single videos. I don't really think we need to decide anything definite for that at the moment, because that's not really what this discussion is about. However, I think making a single page where we list all of the videos with some sort of description or whatnot would work. Really though, that's also something we can discuss after the fact if need be, and not what this discussion should focus on.

Thanks. --Zoey 18:47, 21 December 2007 (CST)


Some quick points...

  • I don't really get all this levels and tiers stuff. For one thing it does help new series. If someone starts a new series and wants to make character pages or transcript pages why should they be penalized from doing so just because they are new?
  • Second "Fan Fiction" is a bad catch all category. The accepted industry related term is User Generated Content or (UGC), and while that applies to derivative series it doesn't apply to original series. The distinction in my mind being that a story be dependent on being a user of the site.
  • I think you should really work with theCs and BK on this. There is a upcoming redesign that will effect UGC and the way it's presented and I assume terminology figures into that. I would think it would be logical tha the lgpedia be consistent with that.

--Immortal1 21:50, 21 December 2007 (CST)

In reply to your points, in order:
  • The idea is not to "penalize" anybody. The idea is to keep the LGPedia clean. When a new series starts out, there is no sure-fire way of knowing how many hits they'll get, how notable they'll be, whether they'll even stick around, etc. Plenty of times we have people create something on the LGPedia when their series is new, and then stop adding things, which either leaves the burden of keeping a minor series up to date on the LGPedians, or leaves the LGPedia looking messy and incomplete, which is not "good for buisness," if you will. We have also had new series come on and create a lot of pages (some of whom eventually stopped, and the burden was shifted on to LGPedians, often me :() and then they decided they no longer wanted their pages on LGPedia, and asked us to delete all of that hard work. That just seems counter-productive. Instead, what makes sense, at least to me, is when a new series starts, their content can be featured on a smaller scale, and as they progress and we see what happens, we can easily promote the series to a higher level. There is nothing that says that the "level" or "tier" or whatever term we use is set in stone. Like I said, we are not looking to "penalize" anyone, but to keep things clean and effective from a Pedia standpoint.
  • The term "fan fiction" is used in this dicussion simply because it is what the "Category" on LGPedia is called and has been since... well, I'd say the dawn of time, but I'm not sure how accurate that is :P. Either way, it is used in this discussion for that reason, and not to disrespect any UGC or other content-creators.
  • Of course BK and the C's can be in on this discussion. But I wanted to bring it to LGPedia first, as this is, after all, a community site, and when I present the thoughts to BK/C's, I figured it is best to have a solid idea of where the community stands.
Hope this clears some stuff up, at least about where I'm coming from! --Zoey 22:14, 21 December 2007 (CST)

Immortal1 said:
I don't really get all this levels and tiers stuff. For one thing it does help new series. If someone starts a new series and wants to make character pages or transcript pages why should they be penalized from doing so just because they are new?
Counter-question: Why should a "series" that has barely released one episode occupy one episode page, one general description page, two character pages, two "xxx's blog" categories, a general category, a blog template and a character index template?
Just to add some math to Zoey's reply: We're talking about 9 pages for a "series" of one episode with two characters. If the "series"'s creators then decide to be even more important and add pages for the actors, director and other staff, as well as filmography categories for them, then you're (with only one camera man as staff) at 19 pages for one episode with two characters already.
And now imagine this: The "series" gets a mere 50 views on youtube, adds a second episode that never gets added to the pedia, and two weeks later, the projects is dead. And we're stuck with 19 meaningless pages, just because somebody made one video.
I have said this in the past, but I think I'll have to repeat it: I have no intent to belittle the efforts of the content creating part of the community - but the fact that somebody somewhere made something and declared it to be connected to the Breeniverse does not automatically make it significant enough to be included on LGPedia.
There is certain stuff that, no matter how much effort and love was invested in it, the general community just doesn't care about. The deciding factors for LGPedia pages are prominence and impact of the page's subject matter - not personal vanity.
Just think about it this way: There are canon characters and actors of the official main series that don't have their own pages - if we don't even give every canon character his own page, why should we add pages for non-canon characters that only five people in the community know so far?
If a series grows and becomes popular, it is inevitable to branch it out into multiple pages and categorize it - simply to conquer the growing amount of information. But if all information on a series fits on one page with no loss of clarity, then that's a pretty good sign it doesn't need multiple pages.
Zoey: Touching that topic, maybe we should assign "series maintainers" for branching out series. i.e. if LeetBlogger15 wants to add separate episode pages for a medium series, we could allow it under the condition that he actively maintains them, and delete them straight away if he doesn't. That way, series of a certain size could branch out without you getting a headache over half-finished pages and dead links. If it looks like crap and the page isn't maintained, it just gets deleted and the creator loses his chance to branch out due to lack of encyclopaedic interest (b/c, if other people had cared for the pages, they'd have fixed them).
~ Renegade (talk | contribs) 15:49, 22 December 2007 (CST)

My response to this whole thing:

I love the idea of categorizing UGC/FanFic like this. Right now, the 'Pedia is a big mess full of barely notable "series" and the characters of that "series." (I have to say - and am sorry to say - that I am responsible with the community for a lot of that clutter.)

And I love Zoey's original Type 1, Type 2, Type 3, Type 4, and Type 5 ideas. However, I'm a bit confused as to what Type 3 is. Could anyone clear that up for me? What exactly are you talking about by exceptions? Hmm?

Just some comments/clear community understandings of Type 1... So, what I'm understanding is that Type 1 is a notable video series with more than 4 main characters and at least more than 15 videos. Type 1 series (whether they are Fan Fiction or User Generated Content) would only get 1 page with a template - however, I'm not liking the current fact that the Type 1 example Lonelyjew15 has a Person template... shouldn't there be like a FanShow template? The sections on the Type 1 series page would include a summary at the top (no section given), a characters section with brief character blurbs and actors if known (Characters and Cast section), a section with the production credits, if available (Production Crew section), and a section with links to where fans could watch the series and if there are any forums about it, etc. (External Links section). They would be in Category:Type 1 fan fiction.

Now onto Type 2... My understanding is that Type 2 is basically a Type 1 that is not as notable. Basically the same stuff, with less comprehensive information. Right? They would be in Category:Type 2 fan fiction.

Type 3... I do not understand what a Type 3 is. Could somebody please clear this up for the community? They would be in Category:Type 3 fan fiction.

Type 4... Major ARGs or fan series that are very notable, such as Redearth88 or Cassieiswatching, would get more than one page with Major character pages, Cast pages, Episode pages, etc. The main series page would be included in Category:Type 4 fan fiction.

Type 5... tsk tsk. Type 5 doesn't belong on the Pedia. No categories, please.

About using the Community Portal... Renegade, I like your idea about using the now hardly used Community Portal as sort of a portal for fan fiction. :) Type 4 would get episode pages linked, and it would be noted whenever Type 1, Type 2, or Type 3 released videos (they would just get linked to their YouTube video page, however).

)

Comments? Concerns? Questions?

Thanks,

  •Silver•   Talk | Contribs 13:07, 23 December 2007 (CST)
Zoey specifically stated we're not supposed to discuss portals or any other "later" stuff, I think we should respect that. We'll have enough time to do that once we figured out which content is important enough in the first place.
As for elaborating on the types, my previous table makes it pretty clear, imo: You have one "category" of series that get no coverage at all, simply because they're not notable. The next level gets a single page, with maybe a paragraph or two, giving an overview of the series. The next level still gets only a single page, but more comprehensive information, like a list of episodes and characters, and a general plot outline. The level after that is the "exception" level - these are theoretically on the level before, only big enough for a single page, but for a special reason get the big treatment - Lonelygirl362436 would be such an example. It only has 1 1/2 human characters and three episodes, so it shouldn't get the full set of pages - but it was made by the Creators and had very high prominence in the community, so gets treated like the next and highest level: A full set of pages and categories, akin to the canon series.
And yes, it'd be possible to create a full set of customizable fan templates to be used, in order to eliminate all the custom saved ones.
~ Renegade (talk | contribs) 14:43, 23 December 2007 (CST)
Just to add my input here, I like the idea. Of course, all the details have to be ironed out, and one inherent difficulty with the system is that it is somewhat subjective. To fix this somewhat, I do think some objective standard should be set (as has been mentioned) like number of views or number of videos in order for a series to reach a certain level/tier. Personally I think view count would be better since having a lot of videos does not necessarily mean that the series is popular. For including videos on the massive "fan fiction" page (or whatever it's called), I think we should be fairly liberal in what gets added. Obviously, we don't want to be too liberal, but it takes minimal effort to add a short description about a series, and it can provide much-needed publicity for a new series. Maybe we could even split this page up into different types of fanfic series, like ARGs, spoofs (if we include them), spinoffs, etc. This should allow more series to be added without things looking as cluttered. Clearly, then, if we're liberal about this page, we'd be much more conservative about series which get more coverage. Writing an entire page on a series can take some time, and writing transcripts can take a long time (Jonas Conference Call anyone?), and there's no point wasting time writing them if no one really cares. Oh, and I like the idea of the customizable fan templates, Renegade. That'll standardize things and remove a lot of clutter. This whole thing is definitely a touchy subject, but I think everyone is handling it well. I hope we reach a good solution because this is something that's needed to be done for a long time now.--Jonpro 19:48, 23 December 2007 (CST)
I don't understand why the number of main characters in a show needs to be a factor in deciding whether or not it is worthy of a certain rank/class/type/tier/level/zone/whatever. ItsCassie, anyone? --Rekidk 19:52, 23 December 2007 (CST)
Nobody ever said it has to be one - it was just part of the example. One new character and three videos is vastly smaller than Maddison Atkins or Redearth are, for example.
First and foremost, "notability" is the important factor. In itscassie's case, video view counts would probably checked, and general community prominence would be tried to assess.
~ Renegade (talk | contribs) 20:53, 23 December 2007 (CST)
Ah, okay; I apologize. I misunderstood. The number of characters was just being thrown out as an example, not something set in stone. I agree that notability should be the most important thing in deciding what gets put in what tier. For example, CassieIsWatching, while lacking a large story or many characters, had a HUGE following and a HUGE effect on the Breeniverse (Glenn created OpAphid after seeing CiW, which led to many events in LG15 from Nov. 06 to Mar. 07... Later led to RE88, etc.) --Rekidk 21:06, 23 December 2007 (CST)

Here's my two cents... I agree that guidelines definitely need to be set up. A great chunk of the "fanfic/UGC/Whatever you want to call it" seems to be the "New Girl" pages. A problem I have seen is that, with the exception of the Flock, the new girls are the most frequently... neglected, for lack of a better word. I'm sure there are other pages that also suffer from this, and we should find a way to condense information in places...

Credit Categories: The only UGC series that are significant enough to merit categories for filmography, credits, etc. would be OpAphid, Redearth88/MaddisonAtkins, and Cassieiswatching (if said info were ever to be released).

Response/Stand-Alone Videos: These should be evaluated on an individual basis. Many of these only take up the space of one page (both video and poster) and function fine (Deemontreal, breeiswaiting, etc.)

Ties to Canon: Videos that fall in the gray territory should also be considered (Paulmark18, watchyourjack, Immant, etc.)

Cassiemania: Maybe there could be a page of Cassie-spinoffs that could be restricted to one page, (in the way that the "List of New Girls" page is set up.) (Cassieresurrection, Frankiswaking, Frankiswaiting@gmail.com, etc.) (although some may merit more)

New Girl Mania: Maybe same solution as the one for Cassie listed above? Why have that list of New Girls page AND a stand-alone page? (Again, some may merit more).

The argument may be made that the level of info given on, say, the lonelyjew15 page isn't enough. Some series have successfully had more information than that and kept it limited to one page (TheLadyLazarus).

Wow, that turned out longer than I intended it to. --FH14 13:21, 24 December 2007 (EST)

We need to seriously look over new girls. All of their videos are transcribed and treated as a series. I know some of them got expanded into series or are a part of one, but some of them are just random and really don't deserve that much attention. - Shiori 16:49, 21 February 2008 (CST)

Series Redesign Discussion

This is independent of any discussion regarding tier placement for now, although once we agree on tiers, further discussion should go on here.

Redearth88

As I was telling Zoey, I want to redesign the base template being used for spin-offs, as I find it repulsive. More on that later. For the time being, though, I've designed a semi-decent replacement for the RE88 portal. (It needs to be done; I hate how it's being referred to as a portal but looks like a crappy write-up section.) It still needs some work, obviously; I just hashed it together in about 20 minutes. So let me know what you guys think, and feel free to edit away on it.

On a related note, we should figure out exactly what will be listed as part of the RE88 portal, and what will be considered wholly separate. - Shiori 11:42, 27 February 2008 (CST)

I for one love the new look. It looks much less cluttered than the previous one. --FH14 15:30, 27 February 2008 (EST)
I also like the new look. Now we just have to figure out what goes to the MA portal and what goes to the RE88 portal.

New Series Template and General guidelines for All

I just gone putting together my redesigned template for series that use it. It's not the best in the world, but it resembles what we have currently and sets some important guidelines that have been argued recently, which I really think need to be hashed out now before we set off redesigning things.

  1. All series should have a summary on the page. No one will find a series valuable if they don't know what it is.
    (My idea for a standard set for the summary is something of the following, but it's more subjective than this: "It should be explanatory enough that someone with no idea of what any of the series listed here would be able to understand. (i.e. Assume no one has previous knowledge of lonelygirl15 or KateModern.)")
  2. Please, for the love of Jehovah, follow these standards: Videos should be listed as direct links to the video, unless they are transcribed. Transcriptions are not recommended, but if they exist, there should be NO direct links to the video in the listing (since they'll have it on the transcript page). In essence, any of the following are a no-no on the listing of videos for a series:
    Video name ([external_link])
    [[transcript|Video name]] ([external_link])
    We want this:
    [external_link Video name]
    [[transcript|Video name]]

Keep in mind that the template I designed is meant to be applied to series that will end up in Tiers 3 or 4, but the guidelines should apply to ALL videos for uniformity. Have fun discussing. :) - Shiori 12:26, 27 February 2008 (CST)

How, exactly, to handle Tier 4 and 5 series pages

I think this also should be discussed. Not only is the randomness of the current structure of pages a pet peeve of mine, but it makes no sense. We've got pages that are the series's name a space and then the content name, we've got series name/content, and we've got content without any series name. I think, considering the more pages we add to the Pedia, the more likely we are to run into naming conflicts, we should put everything (perhaps not characters; that's what a discussion is for) as series name/content, so you'd get stuff like The Flock/Minor Characters. Please discuss, and keep in mind that we've got several classifications of pages to consider:

  • Main series pages (these clearly wouldn't need a content clarifier)
  • Character pages
  • Video pages (if they exist)
  • Informational pages
  • Actor pages This should only really apply to RE88, but I don't think these need series clarification
The formal name is "subpages", although we should probably officially activate the subpages feature in the config to get those handy "<< Series name" links. That being said, this sounds like a very good solution to me - you could have LonelyJew15/Characters, LonelyJew15/Videos, LonelyJew15/OpAdolf and whatnot. We would, of course, need some redirects - LonelyJew15/Anne_Frank is not 100% intuitive.
One thing that bothers me, though, is the "Tier 3" in the section title. As per the definition, Tier 3 pages only get one page. There are no additional pages to discuss. A simple page under "seriesname" is what it is.
And an exception I'd make are actors...there's no use having a separate LonelyJew15/Jenni_Powell to the normal Jenni_Powell. Jenni Powell is Jenni Powell, Maya Kramer is Maya Kramer, and Amanda Goodfried is Amanda Goodfried. They are not specific to one series.
~ Renegade (talk | contribs) 19:03, 19 March 2008 (CDT)
Right you are. It's been so long since we started the revamp, I forgot the tiers. I changed-ed it. - Shiori 19:05, 19 March 2008 (CDT)
Personally I don't like the subpage idea very much. Wikipedia doesn't allow subpages for "permanent content that is meant to be part of the encyclopedia" (Disallowed uses, number 3), and I think there's good reason. Here are a few I can think of for our case:
  1. Subpages are harder to link to. I don't know about you, but typing out [[LonelyJew15/Anne Frank|Anne Frank]] instead of just [[Anne Frank]] seems like a lot more work to me, especially when it must be done for every link to a page relating to a series.
  2. In many cases, there's no overlap of names. There's only one Anne Frank, Rachel, Maddison Atkins, etc., and if a name did happen to overlap, we already have ways to deal with that (e.g. {{one other use}}). In the cases where names would overlap (like "List of videos"), I don't see a problem with just using Redearth88 list of videos (for example), since it's as easy to type (and looks nicer imo) than Redearth88/List of videos.
  3. Some characters are in more than one series. For example, Tachyon is in both OpAphid and Redearth88 (granted, she's named Aly Zarin in RE88 but it's still the same character). Also, I haven't been following RE88 and MA recently, but if it's true there's going to be (already has been?) overlap between the two, how do we decide how to categorize the characters? Heck, War Pylol right now is categorized in Category:OpAphid characters, Category:Maddison Atkins characters, and Category:Redearth characters. Of course, we could decide which series the character is most a part of, but then we run the risk of making it look like the character is only part of that series and not any others.
  4. It would make page names inconsistent and confusing. If someone's looking for the page on Bree, they search for "Bree". If they're looking for Gregory Atkins, they search for "Gregory Atkins", not "Maddison Atkins/Gregory Atkins". Of course, redirects are an option (as you say) but why have a redirect when you can just house the page there in the first place without any loss of understanding about what the page is about? And if we end up sticking with the namespace idea for both official series (see below), that will confuse things even more. 'Cause now I have to type LonelyJew15/List of videos for the LJ15 videos but LG:List of videos (or similar) for the LG15 videos. Seems counter-intuitive and confusing to new (and even ol...err, established) editors. Again, we could have redirects, but it'd be much better (imo) to just keep things consistent.
My proposal, then, is to use "SeriesName Pagename" for pages like "Characters" and "Videos" and to just use "Pagename" for everything else. (In fact, after thinking through all of this, I kind of still like that idea for the official series as well. Hmmm...) Other thoughts?--Jonpro 21:16, 19 March 2008 (CDT)
Dang you're persuasive, Jon. But then this brings up Redearth, which was what I was basing this off of. Should we rename all of the Redearth pages that currently use this structure (during the appropriate phase of the revamp, of course.) But should we come up with some standard for a naming convention when pages need to be moved because of conflict? I've seen (video), (character), (Redearth88), (RE88), and (RE88 character) tacked on to the end of pages floating around (I'm not sure all of them were RE88, but it serves as a good example). Standardizing would probably make this easier... - Shiori 21:56, 19 March 2008 (CDT)
I agree that we need to standardize. My suggestion would be to avoid making the "tack-ons" series specific, but instead use (character), (video), etc. For example, Doctor (Redearth88) would be moved to Doctor (character). However, in an instance where there would still be a conflict (both Jack and Jack (Secondary Character) are characters, for instance), then we would include the series, but not the "character" part of it. So, Jack would stay where it is and Jack (Secondary Character) would be moved to Jack (lonelygirl15), since watchyourjack isn't really lg15. If there was still overlap, then we'd use both (like "(KateModern character)"). For all of these cases, {{one other use}} should probably be used, if not a disambiguation page. Thoughts?--Jonpro 15:01, 1 April 2008 (CDT)

Character Pages Discussion

Okay, so there's been some talk as to the condition of the character pages we have here on the Pedia. Just bring everyone up to speed, here's what's been said so far:

Zoey, I've been pondering this for some time and thought I may as well ask you about it. Why is it that we do an entire "story so far" on every main character page? Wouldn't it be easier to just highlight the big stuff under "background" and pay more attention to keeping up the The Story So Far.... I mean, it just seems like our character pages are going to be so huge that no one will read the entire thing when we could be using the really good parts of each character background to make a really awesome page for our story so far, plus it would be less work for each character page and more people would actually edit our story so far page instead of it being left for months without any work done to it. I hope that all makes sense as now I'm looking at it and seems quite long, anyway, it's not that big of deal, just thought I'd throw that out there. Nancypants 19:20, 19 February 2008 (CST)
I think you have a completely valid point. I've actually been pondering implimenting something to that effect for a long time. The only thing is, I couldn't figure out how to do up the characters' pages so that this would work. Do you have any ideas... maybe a mockup of a page idea so I (and others) can kind of get a better idea of what exactly you have in mind? I'd love to see it! --Zoey 14:55, 10 March 2008 (CDT)
OK, this is proving harder than I had thought it would be. It's difficult to decide what to do with it. Maybe we should start a discussion or something to get other people's input because I really do think it would be better to have the character pages be shorter, but I don't know where to start! By the way I'm not going to be able to do quite as much editing as I have been because people at work are getting suspicious. :( Nancypants 19:07, 10 March 2008 (CDT)

So yeah -- thoughts, people? --Pheon 11:38, 11 March 2008 (CDT)

Well, first I think we should get rid of any sections that are covered in other places (ie: Daniels relationship section and Jonas's fan activity section) and just put links to them at the bottom with the theory links. EDIT: I have made a fake Daniel page here so if anyone has ideas please feel free to mess around and change things, it's just my sandbox. Nancypants 20:36, 13 March 2008 (CDT)

Written policies needed: Disputing edits & commenting etiquette

On two occasions in the past two weeks, the way we deal with disputed edits came into question. As such, I feel it is necessary to, once and for all, write an official policy on how to correctly oppose a revision, and how each side has to behave. This policy has to be signed and endorsed by the administration, in order to give it the necessary authority.

My POV:
In my opinion, the commonly accepted, now disputed policy is the only practical and logical one: Do what the majority wants.
The main question of the disputes was, whether to leave the disputed edit standing and have the disputing side argue why it should be reverted, or to revert to the original version and discuss the changes. In my opinion, it is obvious the latter has to be done, due to the following reasoning:

Let us first take a look at how an edit can commonly turn out:

  1. The edit is made, and nobody disputes it. This suggests the community agrees with the edit.
  2. The edit is made, and somebody reverts it.
    1. In the discussion following, the community agrees with the edit, and the change is reinstated.
    2. In the discussion following, the community disagrees with the edit, and the revert is upheld.

The important part for my reasoning is #1 - no dispute. A certain state of a page can only exist if nobody disputed it. Thus, by the very logic of the concept of community based editing, the original version of the page, the one that is being edited, is a version that was accepted as "usable", "okay" or "fitting" by the community in the past, up to the point until the disputed change was made. The original version can thus be assumed as a community accepted revision, in the sense that the majority of the community saw no reason to change it, or at least saw no reason to propose the disputed change.

Now let us watch how a dispute would go under the different systems:

Common process Proposed process
Page status: Community Accepted Revision Page status: Community Accepted Revision
An edit is made An edit is made
Page status: Unverified Revision Page status: Unverified Revision
The edit gets reverted Somebody disputes the edit on a talk page, explaining why it is not a valid contribution to the page, but is not allowed to revert.
Page status: Community Accepted Revision Page status: Unverified Revision
The editor disputes the revert on a talk page, outlining why his change should be committed, but is not allowed to revert.
Page status: Community Accepted Revision Page status: Unverified Revision
Discussion Discussion
Page status: Community Accepted Revision Page status: Unverified Revision
Decision of the majority - either commit the change, or leave as is. Decision of the majority - accept new revision, or revert.
Page status: Community Accepted Revision Page status: Community Accepted Revision

At first, the processes seems very similar, and the proposed process, as QtheC put it, "encourages addition of content and pushes the discussion toward justifying removal, rather than justifying addition.". However, this does not take into account two very important facts:

  1. The revision status during discussion.
    As visible above, during the discussion in the common process, the page is always held on a community accepted revision, whereas, in the new process, the page stays on the disputed status. In other words, during the common process, the page stays in a revision that nobody in the community but the editor deems "wrong" in any way, while, in the new process, the page stays in a revision that the community has not verified yet, and, in fact, got disputed immediately after it was submitted.
  2. Valuing addition higher than removal.
    This is simply wrong. There is no reason to assume that an addition is always better than a removal. Removing confusing, incorrect or otherwise irrelevant content can clear up and improve a page considerably, while adding only marginally related, badly formatted or phrased or even irrelevant content can confuse readers and significantly diminish a page's quality.
    What should be evaluated is the change itself, not whether the nature of the change was an addition or removal. LGPedia does not per se advocate addition of content. It advocates improvement of content. In most cases, this means addition, yes. But it can very well mean removal, and it is ludicrous to assume that an addition is by default better than a removal.

To return to the process:

  • In the common process, the community accepted revision is upheld, the community discusses a change to the community accepted revision, and, by this discussion, creates a new community accepted revision - be it one that includes the proposed change, or one that expressedly excludes it.
  • In the proposed process, the rogue user's unverified revision is upheld, and the community has to live with an actively disputed revision until it proves that it really, really doesn't like this change.

What does this mean practically?

  1. It is reasonable to assume that the community accepted revision has a certain standard: It has a certain level of visual appeal, the phrasing is alright, and so on. The unverified revision may have been disputed exactly because that is not the case. In the common process, the community accepted, regularly patrolled page stays out for everyone to see. In the proposed process, the potentially erroneous and typo-laden revision stays out for everyone to see.
  2. Significant changes could be forced upon the community. Take my proposed Portal:Lonelygirl15 redesign, for example. Following the new process, I could simply install it and the entire rest of the community would have to justify reverting the change, instead of just reverting it and telling me "we did not approve this yet, kthx". Now, I like to think that my portal redesign is not all that bad, but remember that this policy is for everyone - by tomorrow, you could find yourself arguing about a horrible 1995-looking table-based layout that includes the entire plot of lonelygirl15 on the Main Page.
    And you couldn't just revert it. Policy would say you'd have to discuss the revert first.
  3. Think of the following question: What if the number of discussing people is rather small? In the common process, if people actually adhered to it instead of edit-waring their revision back in (the person I mean knows exactly who he his), the community accepted revision would be upheld even if there was only one "defender" against the editor. The editor would actively have to show the community backs his change before he could push it through. In the proposed process, one single editor is enough to force a significant change through, and now the "defender" has to go out and inform people the page has been violated and actually has to gather support just to return to a state that everybody backs.
  4. Lastly, it is simply a question of common courtesy and "burden of proof" type of thinking - if somebody wants to make a change to a page, that person should be ready to prove that his change is "right" or "makes sense". It should not be required for the majority of the community to go to the talk page and prove the editor wrong, just to get the page they already agreed to back.
    Community backing for a change should be secured before the change is made - not afterwards.

In the end, I can't help but think that the proposed process was proposed exactly because it allows to force rogue edits down the community's throat - because, one must not forget that the common process does not exist to stop changes - it just requires community backing to make them. In the discussions that spawned these proposals, that community backing was lacking. Several times, it was one person arguing for several days without support from others, but still trying to force their will upon the entire rest of the communtiy. It is obvious how these users would gain an advantage from the proposed process.

Let me reiterate this: If someone makes a disputed, reverted edit, and can provide a reasonable explanation for the change, the community will back him, and the majority will reinstate the change even if the "defender" is of differing opinion. If a change finds support by the majority, the common process does not stop it. It just requires the undisputed revision to stay while the discussion is running, and that the change is justified, not the already accepted revision.

Also note that, in 90% of all cases, consent is automatically given by the fact that nobody disputes an edit. The large majority of edits on LGPedia does not get disputed. No matter how this text sounds on first glance, the common process does not require every single change to be largely justified. It just requires changes to be justified should they get disputed.


Independent from this, I would like to have a policy on talk page threads, specifically outlining the following points:

  • Indention
  • Destruction of other user's posts

The former is something I regularly see in discussions - people seem to be entirely unaware of how to use indention to signify who they're replying to, regularly jumping back to the grandparent level without a note or connection to the grandparent post. This is not only annoying to read, but also destroys the flow of discussion, and thus confuses readers.

The latter is something platy does, in particular, and something I consider highly inappropriate: Placing replies to sub-points of a comment directly inside of the original comment.
If I have written a post, that is my post, and nobody has the right to change it except with my consent. It forms a union. Had I wanted to break it up and intermit it with comments, I'd have done that when I wrote it.
We have a quote template. Especially I myself have demonstrated in the past how to use it to reply to select subpoints of previous posts. As such, there is no justification to alter someone else's post without consent.
I would like the talk page rules to specifically state that replies are to be made in a new, separate, independent post, without modifying the original post.

~ Renegade (talk | contribs) 20:26, 4 April 2008 (CDT)

P.S.: I am aware that I have followed platy's style in the recent discussion(s) - as you can see, I pointed out how impolite and inappropriate his behavior was multiple times, but he didn't listen. I had no other choice but to follow him in order to stay in the discussion, and since my posts had already been violated, it didn't make much difference. Still, I am very displeased with this behavior. My posts are mine and the only people who should be allowed to edit it without my consent are administrators.