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

Revision as of 14:12, 24 June 2007

A couple of LGPedia admins (Jonpro & Psmith) take a breather to admire the view from Lucy's Balcony.

Your friendly LGPedia admins, Brucker, OwenIsCool, and JayHenry enjoy an unseasonably warm May afternoon 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.

Zoey, one of your LGPedia admins, frolics with the doves on Lucy's Balcony.

Unused images

In cleaning up location pages I've orphaned a rather large number of images. The location pages had an unfortunate tendency to just include random screen-shots from videos that had absolutely nothing to do with the location. I've been cutting them out. Do we want to have an unused image assessment of some sort? Use the good ones, and just delete the lousy ones? We really don't need to keep hundreds of unused images laying around. --JayHenry 11:06, 15 May 2007 (CDT)

Well I think that you should delete the unused images, that don't look like they can be useful, to add to later articles or updates. Several times I went to an image category to find an image for an article. -misty 17:40, 15 May 2007 (CDT)

General deletion/inclusion guidelines

As a result of the discussion on Template talk:HoverTOC and also somewhat on LGPedia:Tasks#LordGreystoke422's videos, I think it's high time we figured out exactly what our deletion and inclusion policy is here. Currently our deletion policy is rather minimal and very much open to interpretation. There was a discussion about this on LGPedia talk:Deletion Policy quite a while back, and most of that is probably still applicable, but I have a feeling people will have some new ideas as well. I think the best way to handle the inclusion aspect of this would be to create a list of criteria that are necessary in order for an article to be included here. What we don't want to do is turn into Wikipedia here, but having some generals guidelines wouldn't be a bad idea. Another issue is deletion, which I suppose is very related to inclusion. I guess we could also have a list of reasons for why an article should be deleted, and maybe another list for reasons that aren't enough for an article to be deleted. Really, this is very open-ended, but I would love if people would get involved in the discussion here. To put in my two cents, I think a good first point for inclusion would be that it is related to Lonelygirl15 in some way. How closely related it would have to be is a point of discussion I guess, but that's a start at least.--Jonpro 17:39, 7 June 2007 (CDT)

Okay, for me, I think that with fan videos, you should kind of look at what the purpose of the videos is, how they tell their stories, and what kind of stories are being told. Like I think videos that seem to be "going somewhere"... like distinctive stories with distinctive arcs may be better with just large summary pages that people can read. It makes it much easier to follow those kinds of stories when things are all laid out in one place. Like, LG422... and GC and such. Those are the kinds of stories I mean. However, with things like say... aaronbeast, where they're kind of... response videos.. or videos that don't really follow a specific story but kind of adapt based on what's going on in the Breeniverse, those should get their own video pages. That's how I would view it... although I'm not entirely sure that made sense... hopefully it did. :P I'd love people's thoughts please!! --Zoey 18:31, 7 June 2007 (CDT)

I've gotta say, while I did negatively notice this before, when I was looking through the templates to catalogue them, I was once more reminded how many fan-created series have pages here.

That is not bad per se, but, without going to sound arrogant or anything...many of them are just not noteworthy.

Example - chosen randomly, not a personal attack: Linsy. We have a page on her, three video pages with transcripts, and even Category:Linsybeast's blogs. And you know what? I have no idea who the fuck that is.

Don't get me wrong - I have nothing against fanfic, fan participation, or anything. But I think we should set a certain standard of "noteworthyness" before listing people here, at least on more than one general site. Stuff like HSAO gained a lot of user traction, and Dr. Immant's videos apparently were quite well done and well-received by fans (never seen them) - but we don't have to have entire catalogues of every video every LG15 fan once did, just because they pretend to be in the Breeniverse.

Another thing is useless occupation of space; example: There is a hardcoded sidebar-template for "GuillotineCalamity", which means that sidebar is fixed for that video series and cannot be used by anyone else. What's it used for? Two pages that contain barely more than "Transcript incomplete". Check out Category:GuillotineCalamity - the five season subcategories are all empty, and GC Seasons does nothing more than link to these empty categories. Apparently, at least according to the main page on that topic, there actually were quite a lot of these videos. Where are they? Why do we need five categories and a sidebar, if all we have on that series other than the main page are two video pages with no information?

Like I said, don't get me wrong - I have nothing against fan fiction. But what we're currently doing is like accepting every little essay a grade schooler once wrote into the Great Library of Alexandria. We are flooded with pages that, quite frankly, don't interest anyone but the authors...and maybe two or three other people.

I don't know exactly how to solve this problem, maybe by requiring a certain amount of hits on a single page, before branching out is allowed or something, but I think the overall quality of this encyclopedia suffers from this. While fan fiction most definitely is an important part of LG15, this is the official encyclopedia on the official site, sometimes visited by The Creators themselves through their Admin account - I think it should focus on important and official stuff first, and then on fan faction and trivia. Right now, we have some important core pages, like List of Videos, the video pages themselves, List of Characters and the character pages, and a whole lot of crap that is fun to have, but takes focus away from the efficient administration and care for the important pages. Do we really need a page on H.P. Lovecraft? As far as I'm concerned he has had no major influence on the canon. He has enjoyed, perhaps some passing references, but that's nothing special. Hundreds of videos everyday do that. But they link to Wikipedia instead of writing their own page about him. Dava Sobel. wtf do we need that for? It's a one line note, and it's been said on the video page for Proving Longitude Wrong. There is no reason to have that page.

Okay, I think you got my point here - it's late, so I'll move on.

Deletions. Yeeees. Zoey has ignored me for the past few days, so I guess it's evident I have quite some strong feelings on this topic. Most of them I have already posted, so let me just sum things up quickly:

I have nothing against deletions as such. In fact, I myself have given good reason for the deletion of both Template:PageHeader and Template:Clr, after this whole orgy was over - see the respective talk pages. What I was, and still am, annoyed by is the notion that a template should be deleted just because it's currently unused. A template is a convenience thing. A tool. Do you throw away your hammer just because you don't use it at a given point in time, and then get it back out when you actually use it? I think not.

If a template is useless and will most likely never be used, fine - kill it. But if it's a useful little thing, why delete it, just because right now nobody is using it?

The discussion also revealed a kind of weird view of deletion around here - apparently, it means nothing. The stance here seems to be to delete something if it's currently unwanted, and to restore it if it's wanted again. And that just takes the use and meaning out of it. A deletion should be a strong statement that the page is not wanted anymore. Instead, it's being used for a crude form of giving the appearance of order - similar to a child that gets the order to clean his room, only to shovel all his toys under his bed. Sure, it looks clean, but as soon as he'll need the toys, he'll get them back out.

I am not against restoring, I said that. But it should be a tool rectify a mistake - not an action as common as opening a page.

In fact, this stance is probably connected to what I mentioned above - we have too much crap lying around here. If pages were reduced to essentials and semi-essentials, it'd be a much harder decision to delete anything, simply because it'd have a major impact on the information presented. Instead, an admin can delete half the pages here without fear to destroy anything important - 90% of all users would still find exactly what they want.

It's two o' clock in the morning, so I'll stop here. I know I didn't present any solutions, but maybe it's better to hear your reactions first anyway. Don't be shy, and don't be afraid to use whatever language you might find necessary. Just remember that we're talking about administrative issues here, not friendship or community. This is not, at least from my point of view, about whether or not somebody's feelings might get hurt if his pages are deleted (be it "my" templates, Linsy's blogs, or carefully crafted pages over totally insignifcant details), but about how to get a certain sense of order in this thing, and setting a certain standard of quality.

You cannot accept everything if you want the average to be good. The question is just if you have the balls to turn people down if it's necessary.

~ Renegade (talk | contribs) 19:09, 7 June 2007 (CDT)

*looks up* ...oops. Template:Quote, if anyone is crazy enough to reply.

BAH, Zoey, out of my line of post! [Editing conflict resolved]

@Zoey: Hmm, that's an interesting idea, but I'm not sure it would really work. I don't think it would be too fair to say that a certain series shouldn't have video pages just because it has the "story" format that you're talking about. Similarly, there's no reason that a rather minor fanfic video should get its own video page just because it doesn't have that story format. I think the criteria should be something like popularity, connection to LG15, probability of canonicity, etc.

@Renegade: I think you raise some good issues. Firstly, I agree with you about the problem with notability of videos. I think when the whole new girl thing was going on, every possible "new girl" was given a page, and all of their videos started to be transcribed. This has created a lot of probably-less-than-notable fan blog pages that people may not be that interested in. I think a good solution might be to figure out which ones are actually notable (perhaps page-view count as you suggest or maybe something else), and then determine if we need the transcript pages or just one page for the character that could give a summary of their blogs and general information on them. That way, the notability or important of a fan series is reflected here by how much space, time, effort, etc. we put into it. Again, it might be hard to determine the "notability" factor, but I'm sure we could come up with some method to do so.

As far as the waste of space, the reason that happens (at least from my point of view) is that we hate to undo someone's work because we either 1) don't want to hurt their feelings (a lame reason really) or 2) think they might come back to it at some point in the future. It's a little similar to the templates you created, Renegade. We see that someone has created something which looks like it could be useful, but isn't really being used yet. We're skeptical about deleting it, and yet it seems like it would help clean up if we do. I think just better communication all around would help solve this problem. We shouldn't be afraid to ask people why they created a certain page, template, category, etc. as long as it's done in a considerate way. If there is a genuine good use for what they have done, then they can explain it. If it was done on a whim or we decide it's not necessary or there's a better way to organize the information, then it can be deleted or reorganized.

And really, I agree with you about the deleting/restoring thing. What I was trying to say before is that if a page gets deleted because no one sees a good use for it, then we can fix the mistake of deleting it by restoring it. I was trying to point that that deletion isn't that big of a deal because it can be undone. Of course, if we think we're going to be restoring something later, then of course we shouldn't delete it. I hope this makes sense, and I'll try to explain better if it doesn't.

One final word. You're right that we're not talking about friendship or community here, and I agree that people should be free to express their opinions openly. Sometimes, though, this can turn into a war between people rather than between those people's ideas. I encourage everyone to not take anything personally here. As I'm so fond of saying, we're all working toward the same goal, so please remember that and never assume that someone is attacking you personally. Any and all personal attacks here will not be tolerated, so let's try to not make that an issue. That said, let's continue to have a helpful discussion that will make this place better for everyone.--Jonpro 12:22, 9 June 2007 (CDT)

Okay I just wanted to say, my idea was for how to handle videos once they're already gotten the stamp of approval to be on the page, based on whatever criteria we set. Because like Renegade said, the GC videos and the CIW vidoes all have video pages, but really arent used. So um, if based on our criteria to get something on the site in the first place, they're still good, I think we should look at the things I mentioned before, and perhaps decide that they don't need video pages, only summary pages (like LG422 videos as well). As far as WHAT those criteria are, I don't really know...

And Renegade, I haven't been ignoring you. I've been reading everything you say very closely. The strength of my opinions on these topics, however, doesn't even come close to yours, so it is difficult for me to give you worthy responses. But I am reading what you are saying and just... trying to take a step back and examine all viewpoints before I give any input on what I think should be done for what things. --Zoey 00:46, 16 June 2007 (CDT)

Pinging Zoey with 478 bytes of data:
Reply from Zoey: bytes=1006 time=563040000ms TTL=255

hehehe :D

Nah, seriously...thanks for replying at all. Although I now feel like a fundamentalist radical on the topic of deletions, it at least gives me the hope I didn't piss you off for good. I do see some irony in the fact that Template:PageHeader still exists, though, given that even I am for its deletion now. :D

Aaaand that brings us back on topic (ain't I good?): It's dead. Nobody wants to talk, but us. So I propose we do the stuff suggested below, to make people aware of what we're discussing above. Sound like a plan? Good. I'll try to code/design something and ... Update: I did code something, behold it on LGPedia:Participate. But now my favorite admistress (or one the other demi-gods) would have to go to MediaWiki:Recentchangestext and add {{LGPedia:Participate}}, as I lack the power to do that. Make sure to add it outside of a block of text though (first thing on the page at best) as everything else fucks it up. Took me three revisions to figure out the template was fine, and the the positioning was to blame. -_- And adjust the top-margin when it's added, I had to guess for now.

~ Renegade (talk | contribs) 15:35, 16 June 2007 (CDT)

It's looking really good. I think featured articles and proposed merges should also be added... and probably some other stuff I'm not thinking of ATM. I'm assuming it doesn't update automatically though? So people will have to really be on top of it. Oh, and also, I think the text under Participate should be bigger... for those of us who are blind *cough*. I'll see about adding it to recent changes, but I generally fail at that kind of stuff anyways, so it might be better to wait for another admin to come along and make it look nice...

And um, yeah, I'm going to go delete PageHeader now :D --Zoey 16:12, 16 June 2007 (CDT)

The fact that "Renegade" does not know "who the fuck" Linsy is, is pretty unimpressive criteria for deleting anything a fan has taken the trouble to add to LGPedia. I think the opinion as expressed here is incredibly arrogant and hostile to community (comments such as "grade school", "crap", "having balls" etc. do not inspire confidence). My personal opinion is that unless you are running into some hard technical issue such as exceeding storage space (which is usually absurd these days, but possible), there is very little justification to delete contributions made by occasional posters or those outside the core LGPedia group. That is the opposite of what you should be doing. Add structure? Absolutely. Move really random/disconnected items off to an orphanage for lost pages (or equivalent) sure. But don't delete, and leave a link (comprehensive note on a talk page or comment in history or *some* obvious path to finding the moved article without having to contact a staff member - I'm not sure what the best solution there is).

There are growing and independent circles of fans, who are every bit as invested and involved in their segments of the Lonelygirl15 community as the few LGPedia mainstays, and the vitality of this effort depends on the confidence that time invested in posting here will not be discarded by someone with a different idea of what is important. That kind of editing would be disrespectful and foolish. My contributions here have been minor, and may not even fit in with your concepts (I don't know), but if I put something here and linked to it from off site, and came back later to check for updates, etc. and found my work silently deleted, I would be angry. That kind of move should be made with the utmost care and respect.

So address the issues, but find a better solution than deleting even relatively trivial contributions from fans. You never know when they will come back to expand on or edit their work, possibly becoming more significant contributors later. You folks have a great thing going here - there is no need to alienate the occasional contributors. First contributions take the most effort sometimes, and should not be undervalued.

Maybe a better editorial concept is to think of a core set of pages (a trunk and main branches) that are tightly controlled, surrounded by a cloud of satellite pages (twigs and leaves) that are a bit wild and unruly, with a few orphans that fall to the ground, but are still down there somewhere. ~ QtheC 08:15, 24 June 2007 (CDT)

So wait, let me get this straight...you wait for eight days, to attack a sentence in a post that's almost three weeks old, over a fact that was clearly introduced with "chosen randomly, not a personal attack"?

Riiiiiight. Were you bored, or just in an aggressive mood?

Everybody else got fine that it was an example to illustrate the issues with noteworthyness we have here, and the fact that you can only fight it by dragging it down to a personal level and attacking my credibility just proves to me that I raised an undisputable point; you may not like it, but fact is: In all probability, said "Linsy" adds nothing to the Breeniverse.

Yes, it is nice to have devoted fans, and yes, the fan interaction in and with this series is great - but that does not automatically mean that the official encyclopedia has to include every single video by every user that slightly, remotely connects to the topic. I have nothing against including notable fans on LGPedia. If a video series gained a big viewership, like the several Cassies or HSAO, or some of the OpAphid analyzation vids, fine, include them - they are important to the community around the series, and, as such, important to the series.

But, no matter how arrogant you'd like to interpret this, reality is: The latest vid of that "Linsy" person has 71 views. It has a page with nothing but a sidebar, and it's a shaky video of her or her character's birthday "partay". Okay. Typical YouTube content. Fine to be online. But why the hell does it have to be on LGPedia? Is it of great importance to the canon? Nope, she's not canon. Is it of great importance to the fandom? Nope, it's had 70 views before I just clicked. Is it an exceptionally well-crafted page? Nope, it's one line with a sidebar.

She may be a nice person, and her videos might even be funny - but, as of this moment, there is nothing exceptionally significant or notable about them that'd require us to list it here. And the positive effect of having everything listed gets outweighted by the negative effect of having almost everything look like crap.

Even if you wish to list each and every tiny little fanvid, what's the use of listing them if their page says nothing? Let's say we let that page stay as it is. What is the great advantage gained by users through this? Is it that, of nineteen videos existing, only four are listed? Or that, of these four, one fourth doesn't have a transcript? Or that they can read a transcript at all?

Who is, realistically, going to read a transcript of some girl's fanfic blog?

You can call me arrogant all you want, whoever lives in reality sees I'm not trying to belittle that girl, but to be realistic. It is great she's active in the community, and it takes a great deal of courage to tape a video and put it out there for everyone to see. But the fact that she's a fan with a video alone doesn't make her or her video significant enough to be put up on the official site next to the information on official videos.

We should focus on information important to the Breeniverse and the fandom. And some girl's birthday party, as nice as she may be, just has nothing to do with. The maximum effect that page will have on unintroduced users will be that they wonder how she is tied into the series, and get all confused.

Added to reply to addition:

That may be a nice idea, but the problem is, would care for the twigs and orphans. We'd have hundreds of unmaintained pages laying around, building a "cloud of crap", so to speak, around the important entries. If someone maintained these pages, it'd be a different issue...but people won't. You can hope and dream all you want, a "lowly" fanfic-video-page just isn't gonna get the same editorial attention as an official video page.

~ Renegade (talk | contribs) 09:12, 24 June 2007 (CDT) [Editing conflict resolved]

And for the record, thanks to the new sidebar on recent changes, silent deletions are almost impossible now - unless someone disregards all procedures.

"Have your say" page

I just had a read of the problems mentioned above (deletions etc.) and thought of an idea that might be of help to both this and other problems that arise from "normal users" scanning the last 50 recent changes to see what has been happening (thereby missing out when there have been lots more changes since they last logged in). I would propose having a LGPedia:Have your say page listed on the right hand column, perhaps under the "Recent changes". This page would then have links to all current discussions and votes that users may be unaware are going on at all, e.g. pic/caption votes, redesign comments, delete-tagged pages. This may help getting more people involved in decisions than at present (because they wouldn't necessarily be logging in as frequently as an admin, nor would they be visiting the various log pages that we know about). In addition, the delete period between tagging and deleting should be increased to 2 weeks (except where an admin is just rectifying a mistake).

This may not completely avoid the situation with deleted templates mentioned above, but if in addition we admins think twice in future before nominating something unused for deletion than that's probably all else we can do.

Having said that, as both Renegade and Jonpro have respectively pointed out, it is neither a big deal leaving pages that are unused alone until they become useful again, nor accepting that some pages which are deleted through lack of feedback can be restored afterwards. Let us not get heated about this either way. Psmith 15:27, 8 June 2007 (CDT)

I like that idea very much, Psmith. Renegade proposed something similar on Template talk:HoverTOC, but I think this would work better. I think people see that column a lot and "Have your say" if a very self-explanatory phrase that should hopefully draw people in to have their say about things. We would have to make sure to keep this page updated or it wouldn't work, but if we can do that, then I think it should work great. As far as extending the deletion period from 1 week to 2, it really doesn't make a difference to me. If people think this would help solve problems with deletions, then I'm all for it. I'd love to hear others' opinions on both of these issues, so please feel free to pipe in with your support or objections.--Jonpro 12:22, 9 June 2007 (CDT)

BEHOLD what Zoey and I crafted together!

~ Renegade (talk | contribs) 18:07, 16 June 2007 (CDT)

Wow! Psmith 12:45, 17 June 2007 (CDT)