GuildWiki talk:Mission statement

server admin attendance

 * Currently, Phil's sick with either avian flu, ebola, or a space virus, and as such, his normal disinterest is heightened to such a level as to break Star Trek tricorders everywhere.
 * Michael has had some very, very late nights over this, and is tired and frustrated and cranky.

I'm inviting folk to use this space to cuss and discuss the relevant issues. We'll be keeping an eye on the server just to make sure nothing breaks and needs fixing, but don't expect the server administrators to be taking part in the discussion for the next few days, at least. --Nunix 04:50, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Policy
Use these sub-headers to describe what rights, roles, and obligations you'd like to see the administrators have. Aside from what the code grants, there are currently none set in stone as official guildwiki policy.

gamewikis
Tanaric brought this up before, so I wanted to address it. Phil and I really enjoyed getting guildwiki started, enjoyed bringing in people to work on it. We really -like- the wiki format. It's certainly better for MMO strategy guide/documentation than anything else out there. So we got to thinking about other games we could give the treatment to, possibly as some kind of business model. We're still throwing some ideas around.

However, at no point would guildwiki.org be directly involved in that. It will not be under any larger policy decisions, ever. Why? Because it wasn't started that way. Now, if we get civ4wiki going, or this Weird Worlds wiki I'm kicking around, or any number of other things, those would be under gamewikis guidelines to some extent. But guildwiki will forever remain the springboard, a special satellite, and totally left to its own devices (more or less). The most that might ever happen would be an extra domain name (you could still get to it by guildwiki.org, but there'd probably be also guildwars.gamewikis.org or somesuch) or a small banner-button-dealie somewhere unobtrusive.

AS SUCH! While I think the way the point has been made is reprehensible, I can totally accept that long-time contributors - who've put a lot of sweat and blood and tears into this thing - might be looking for what could best be described as a charter. In fact, I think GuildWiki:Charter might be a good article to write once we sort all this stuff out. And you know? We're long, long overdue for it.

Guildwiki's going to stay autonomous, no fear. --Nunix 01:33, 5 January 2006 (UTC)


 * I can't give this the proper reply it deserves right now, so I'll just make a single point and get back to writing a proper reply in a few days when I have some time (sorry!). It's really important to me that you and Gravewit realize that this isn't your baby. I've been here just as long (probably longer, actually, since the wiki community I founded with my own cadre of wonderful editors was up and advertising before GuildWiki was) as you guys and I've been involved with more policy and more content.  I don't understand why it's always "Gravewit and Nunix decided...".  It doesn't fit.  This place is as much mine as it is yours.  Even looking at the ledger, I'm right up there with everyone else when it comes to money donated.  While I'm glad you chose to deal with doing the legwork for hosting and such, had there been any sort of community process, or had there been a need or vacuum, I'd have been there immediately to get us up and running.


 * I'm not looking for recognition, a pissing contest, or anything&mdash;my point is simply that you cannot ever think of GuildWiki as "yours," because it's not. You don't have the authority to write a charter and enforce it on us.  You don't have the authority to advertise Firefox.  And you didn't create the GuildWiki, we all did&mdash;you share an equal part in the victory, no more and no less.  That's the beauty of this community-driven, community-sponsored work we all set out to make so long ago.


 * And, I apologize if this is read as curt or aggressive; that's not my intent at all, and, if you've been following my edits at all over the last two seasons, I'm sure you already know that. :) &mdash;Tanaric 01:50, 5 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Oh, and... ninja moves for the win! &mdash;Tanaric 01:52, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

The powers of Gravewit over the Wiki
I would like for the discussion about the addition of that IE/FireFox note to be continued and continued here. I am moving this discussion back here for several reasons:


 * 1) I am not sure why a matter that has to do with the wiki should be discussed on some other site. I am assuming no nefarious purposes like attempting to kill the discussion by moving it away from the eyes of the users. But I believe the discussion belongs here and the topic too important to be shelved in some far away blog.
 * 2) I am not satisfied with the responses that have been posted so far to the points I have raised. The responses so far have been: None. No one has addressed the issue of how much power does Gravewit exercise over the wiki. This is the issue and no one has even looked at it.
 * 3) I am not satisfied with my issue being re-written into some other issue. So I am starting a section specifically for my issue. If you (any reader/contributer) wish to go off onto tangents about other issues, please start other sections. This is too serious and too important an issue to let die by committee.

Now, this is my issue:

'''By Editing the Main Page of Guildwiki to advertise a product that he believes in, I believe Gravewit committed an abuse of power. No one in the wiki has that right. Regardless of the specific note placed, it was a note that had NOTHING to do with the wiki and was serving his own PERSONAL beliefs and perspectives on some other issue. This is tantamount to any other admin editing the Main Page to advertise any personal belief they hold.'''

My issue is NOT:
 * Whether IE is a security risk or not.
 * Whether FireFox is better than IE or not.
 * How Gravewit and Nunix mishandled the response early on.

My requests are:
 * 1) NO ONE has the right to edit the Main Page (or any page) for their personal beliefs on something unrelated to the wiki. What Gravewit did is equal to an anonymous user editing the Unique Items page to say that "Joe is a retard." A personal belief unrelated to wiki content.
 * 2) In the future, if someone wishes to use the Main Page to advertise for some other cause they believe in, then they must make a request on the talk page and ask for the community's support of this idea. If a majority of the community believes the Main Page should feature a link to endorse FireFox or Microsoft or even the Bill Gates Retirement Fund, then so be it.
 * 3) In the future, should any admin (yes, including me) be faced with complaints from others (especially two other admins) about an edit he made, he should at least discuss the matter if not revert his edit. The language of "It's there till tuesday, like it or not" is unacceptable on this wiki for any user, be he Joe Shmoe or the almighty Gravewit.

Please discuss and vote on these three requests. Thank you. --Karlos 22:24, 3 January 2006 (UTC)


 * I never saw it personally (FF user here, but I'm going to try to be objective), but I don't like it. Though I've only been here for three months and only have a few hundred edits, I feel like my work was being used for something other than information for the Guild Wars community. I actually might have agreed to this if
 * It wasn't the one of the first things IE users had to read after a couple of weeks being down.
 * There had been a community vote.
 * It wasn't so obtrusive.
 * My 2Â¢ &mdash; Lunarbunny 23:06, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
 * I'm just a normal user but I come to the wiki for unbiased information regarding Guild Wars. If I need to do a research paper for the Civil War persay and I look at the Encyclopedia Britanica I will not find on the cover of that encylopedia a picture of the political party the writers favor. Encyclopedias, newspapers, the news is all supposed to be unbiased. Sure they may allow advertising but that is not the same as endorsing a product. That's just my 2 cents --DragonWR12LB 01:45, 4 January 2006 (UTC)


 * I agree. It was something that had nothing at all to do with the wiki, and was intrusive for a large majority of the users.  Karlos' three part proposal seems like something that should be put into immediate use.
 * I use FireFox and I feel that that was not a good way to try to get people to switch to using it. Instead it made FireFox supporters seem petty and juvenile, and by association, it made GuildWiki (and GameWikis) seem that way too.  --Rainith 17:27, 4 January 2006 (UTC)


 * The way I look at things, the person who pays the bill when donations don't cover the site's operation has final say over what does and does not happen. Unless there is verifiable proof that donations are paying for everything, we really don't have any right to tell Gravewit what he can and cannot do.  Yes, this site is by the community, for the community.  But Gravewit opens his wallet when the rest of us won't.  And while I feel personal messages have no place in the wiki, we can't minimize his contributions.  I feel that things are working fine as they are; Gravewit tried to do something with the site,  we as users complained, and the issue was resolved.  I can't say that trying to remove his authority to alter the wiki as he sees fit would be good for the community.  Personally, if I were in his position, I'd be inclined to shut things down if I was expected to pay the bills and not have any control over things.  Daedalusleto 22:20, 4 January 2006 (UTC)


 * First: Phil's sickly today, so we haven't had time to discuss this; this comment, here, is not any kind of official response to the complaint. It's just a fellow contributer having a discussion.  (and using enough emphasis to make Baby Hesus cry)


 * Second: I am loathe to comment. I feel we're being baited by Karlos into having an argument with him; evidence of how those usually go can be seen quite a few places (including Talk:Tank and his own usertalk page). So the righteous indignation I read in his posts sets my hackles up, and I want to ignore this whole damned thing. I don't believe his intentions are honorable, but some other folk have weighed in, so I'll make some short comments for their sake, if nothing else.

It was one splash page for less than half the site's users for one day. Know why there was no announcement? No "vote"? Because it was such an unbelievably dinky, minor, trivial thing that we had no idea anyone would really care beyond some silent griping in their head. Someone spoke up - we hadn't made clear it was only a one-day thing, so that was legitimate - and when I'd've rather been sleeping, I made a nice clean, explanatory blog post about what was going on. And we honestly figured that was that. I don't see us doing it again; it was a one-off thing, bit of a lark. I do find it teeth-gnashingly ironic that if we'd decided to simply not work to make the site look okay in IE (this was an incredible headache) and simply stuck an announcement on the front page to switch to Firefox/Opera/Lynx from day one, no one would seriously complain.

Also, in my personal opinion, wiki != mob rule. Bringing out pitchforks and calling for a revolution is NOT the way you complain about something if you a) want to be taken seriously, and b) want something to actually be done. There's always going to be The Guy In Charge, and if that concept makes a person queasy, well, I hear there are some very interesting experiments in hive-mind social engineering going on. --Nunix 18:45, 4 January 2006 (UTC) (who is likely going to regret posting at all. let's see how fast history repeats itself!)


 * Where are you drawing the line between a mob and a community? No one at all has said it was a good idea, and just about everyone said it was a bad one.  I basically agree with Karlos on this.  It's not the length of time it was up that's the issue, but that it was up at all.  (Though the actual content didn't help... anyone that saw it was almost guaranteed to be annoyed.)  --Fyren 19:54, 4 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Just reposting my comment from the alternate discussion board. Sinse the discussion migrated back here, I wasn't sure if those posts would be seen:


 * I have no problem with the concept of recommending Firefox as an alternative to IE. Itâ€™s the mode in which it was done that bothered me. The initial page that IE users reached was as obnoxious and intruding as a pop-up ad. As a result, I avoided guildwiki until the â€˜experimentâ€™ with that page was over.
 * There are far less intrusive ways to recommend an alternative browser. To me, it would have been less intrusive, and possibly more productive, to insert a box above the navigation box on the left of each page that provided a similar message to IE users (but which was invisible to other browser users). --Barek 20:50, 4 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Fyren -- when Karlos shows up and starts holding votes about limiting the site admin's power; The Guy In Charge, who pays the bills, holds the keys, and started the whole danged thing. I would personally be offering apologies and "my bads" to everyone else if Karlos hadn't gone at it this way. Was it a bad decision to do the splash page? I don't think so. Was it handled poorly on our end? I definitely would've done things a little differently. But I'd call Karlos on the same thing. Of course no one's going to be editing the main page to say, "Switch to OS X! And also, America sucks, viva la Xanadu!" Now this may simply be a philosophical difference; I not only like but EXPECT there to be just one guy in charge. Committees suck.
 * From reading these comments, there's really two things here, which is WHY I WANTED IT OFF THE TALK:MAIN PAGE -- people annoyed at the splash page. That's cool. I totally dig it. Then there's Karlos and his pitchfork. Does that make sense? Putting aside any other disagreements, I want to make sure my position (again, as a user, not as anyone with status) is clear.
 * Also, for record: Monday's hits were something like 200,000+ people, with about a 43/43 split as far as IE/Firefox users. MY request is that folk stop propagating the sentiment that everyone, or nearly everyone, thinks that it was a bad idea, since we've maybe cracked a dozen comments on this. --Nunix 21:22, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Well I'd like to just express a few opinions although I suppose I'd better declare that I'm a Firefox user. Ok firstly I'm not really sure if wikis, unlike most forum software, have a voting facility. When people above talk about "voting" I presume they mean people posting on some talk page. Perhaps this makes wikis hierarchical by nature and less democratic. So as I see it, a "vote" would probably just entail a discussion involving the admins and a few others, similar to this current discussion anyway. When people say "get the opinion of the community" or "see what the community prefers" we're really only talking about a dozen people here. I could be wrong here, I apologise if I am, but I've never seen a system on any wiki where you log in, select a voting option and click submit and there's no link on the nav bar to "current votes".

As I see it this is really no different to joining a Guild in Guild Wars. As most of the posters in this discussion are admins (or sysops), they basically equates to Officers. People like myself and Lunarbunny are Members. Gravewit is the Guild Leader. We all get some say I suppose, but the Officers get more say and the Leader gets the final say. Of course like any Guild we have disputes but I think generally we get along and respect each other.

Ok and here's the crux of my argument, we contributors of the GuildWiki don't have the Right to demand things but we Should suggest and implement any improvements we can think of and most importantly we have a Responsibility to speak up when we disagree with something that Phil does. But whether he was elected by default, democracy or Divine Will is irrelevant, he is the owner of this site, he pays the bills, he's the one that fixes both hardware and software when the need arises.

I think this discussion would have worked better if it had been more along the lines of people posting that; they'd prefer not to see popups in the future and I'd don't think that GuildWiki should be involved in browser wars for this reason "......" and in future I'd prefer you to give us some warning when you're going to make a change like this, to give us an opportunity to make suggestions. The personal attacks, claims of what the community wants and arguments about who owns the GuildWiki don't help. There will always be a bit of "us at them" mentality between the bureaucrats and the community, but it can be minimised. I think Gravewit and Nunix have done quite well considering that they were backed into a corner, ganged up on and accusations were being thrown around. For the record I didn't like the browser popup but my main concern is avoiding confrontations like this in the future. I mean look at the title of this "# 16 The powers of Gravewit over the Wiki" it's unnecessarily provocative and nasty, why not call it "The IE popup" instead? Remember as I said before, things like this are not all bad, they're a sign of people who are passionate about this project. But you should always avoid winding people up when you can. --Xasxas256 22:00, 4 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Interjecting again to keep the discussion on course:
 * This is NOT about whether or not Gravewit and/or Nunix are doing a good job as site managers and whether or not they should be removed/rewarded. Let us not turn this into a trial for their performance or an ode to their dedication. Neither performance nor dedication is being questioned here.
 * This is NOT about belittling Gravewit's role or demanding that his head roles. I like what Gravewit does and I want him to stay admin for ever. This is about me recognizing that Gravewit (and Nunix) do not recognize where their power ends and where out rights begin and me wanting to make sure this is specified and clarified. So I don't CARE about what happened with the specific IE note, I care about moving forward, how do we prevent this from happening?
 * This is also NOT about Karlos. Although Nunix is trying to desparately turn into that, it is not. Every senior contributor and admin who has chimed in so far has agreed with observation and most have agreed with my requests. It saddens me that I refused to assume ill-will in Nunix and Gravewit yet Nunix not only assumes ill-will in my requests, he is even threatening me with macho messages in my talk page.
 * A side product of that is that this is NOT Karlos vs Nunix or Karlos vs Gravewit or whatever. I hold a great amount of respect for Gravewit, Tanaric, LordBiro and Nunix, the people who put in a lot of effort to get this wiki going and by no means should this discussion turn into "Either him or me."
 * Now, let us get back to what this IS about:
 * This IS about defining what Gravewit's powers over the wiki are (this includes whatever powers he chooses to delegate to Nunix). If the majority of people here think this wiki is Gravewit's and if he chooses to post anti-IE ads, porn site ads, or "Gravewit for President" ads he is free to do so (as Xasxas seems to believe) then so be it. But if the majority (as it seems) are against what was done, then it seems to me bnoth a scam and very rude behavior to disregard their feelings and input on such a matter yet benefit from their contributions and financial donations.
 * This is a democratic community. In all matters such as what to do about the costs, the hosting, getting google ads, we have taken a vote and done what people felt was best. This is why I am calling upon the same people to vote and weigh in on how we should handle this. I feel it is a very serious matter.
 * This is NOT Gravewit's site. Judging by the present status of the Ledger, I have put in this more money than Gravewit. Does this mean I can kick off anyone I don't like and decide that this site will post a note favoring IE now? Gravewit has certainly put in more hours into supporting and maintaining this site. Work that no one else has done. For this his place in this wiki will always be preserved, whether people acknowledge it or not. But I have done my part, as have Fyren, Tanaric, Tetris and Rainith and countless others. This is not a "Gravewit did more things than you so he gets to do all he likes." The server management and the "keys" are all things that can be done by others, just as my contributions can be done by others. This stand I am taking now is explicitly about this not being Gravewit's site to with as he pleases.
 * The choice of title is very blunt. Because this is what this discussion is about. It is NOT about the IE box, it is about Gravewit (and Nunix) refusing (till today) to say "yes, we should have consulted you guys first and yes we do NOT have a right to edit the main page as we please." And, Xasxas, I did try to discuss this over e-mail with Phil (Gravewit) and got no response what so ever, then I tried talking about it on the blog, got no response what so ever, so I brought it here with the specific title and issue I have.
 * Finally: This is a call to stay on the topic: Let us define the authorities and responsibilities when it comes to what kind of non-related material can be placed on wiki pages. This is NOT Gravewit's site.
 * --Karlos 23:32, 4 January 2006 (UTC)


 * I apologize for being overly antagonistic in my blog post on the subject; because I am not particularily proud of that post, nor is it particularily representative of how I feel, I'm not going to copy it over onto this talk page. Anyone looking for a poor example of how to participate in a discussion is free to look it up.


 * I share the concerns Karlos has mentioned. This site has always been community focused&mdash;every action, reaction, policy, and idea, whether originating from Gravewit, Nunix, myself, or elsewhere, has always been discussed with the community (no matter how little of the community really cares about it) before implementation.  Recently, with the development of the forums, the Gamewikis blog, and this IE warning (I didn't see it, I don't care what it said), focus has shifted more to Gravewit/Nunix (not sure where the line is drawn, don't mean to implicate)'s desires, no matter how well-intentioned.


 * I don't mind the non-GuildWiki stuff being driven by passion and the desires of a founder&mdash;that's what founders are for. I'd really like a description of what you're trying to do, though, as I'm not sure what your goals are, what scope you're aiming for, if you still intend to try and keep this funded by the community, whether you're trying to make this for-profit (I'm pretty positive I saw "I'm trying to spin this GuildWiki thing into something profitable" on somebody's user page or talk page&mdash;maybe a profile on the forums?&mdash;some time ago, but for the life of me I can't figure out who or where).  A mission statement, and more importantly, some meta place where those interested in the spinoff project can converse about it would be useful.


 * However, when you start messing with the GuildWiki, I get concerned. I doubt anyone here would mind being incorporated into gamewikis.org (for all intents and purposes, it's a second, foreign organization) if such an incorporation would leave the GuildWiki fully intact and more or less identical to how it is now.  However, if it means we have to submit to political choices by the gamewikis founders, or stricter control by administration, or a heirarchical user structure, I am fully opposed to said incorporation.  The GuildWiki is its own institution, and I'll fight for its right to thrive as it always has.


 * This means that policy at the GuildWiki needs to remain in the GuildWiki, not shuffled off to a blog somewhere. And it means that its admins, and its founders, need to abide by such policy.  Your IE box advert thing was spam, and, had I seen it, and were it in wikicode, I would have reverted it.  If you disagree with these sentiments, please express why, and discuss it with us, as you always have. &mdash;Tanaric 00:10, 5 January 2006 (UTC)


 * I'm not entirely sure how you can say Karlos that this isn't Gravewit's site, I mean it clearly is his site, he's owned the GuildWiki from the beginning until today and if tomorrow guildwiki.org became a Russian Brides site you'd quickly realise this!!!


 * How can we have just come off the back of the IE popup scandal (Popupgate!?) and you're still arguing that this isn't Phil's site!!?? P.S. In the 4th last sentence of my previous post I mention that I didn't like the IE popup.


 * There is no voting on this site, there's no bar graphs that say x number of people agree x number of people disagree. We simply have discussions and in the end Gravewit (or Nunix) read (and post in) the discussion and then they make a decision based on that. I guess that makes out role more like an advisory group rather than a group of voters where the decision is automatically decided based on how the votes tally. What Nunix said about committees sucking is kind of true, I think there does have to be someone who can break deadlocks, make a final decision. Edit wars are a pain but imagine if our committee (or community) couldn't decide on what version of MediaWiki to use or whether or not to add ads, either these things would keep changing back and forth or nothing would get done, both are undesirable alternatives. Someone must be able to break a deadlock.


 * Basically I don't feel as though we all own this site and I'm happy to have a benevolent dictator. But our benevolent dictator shouldn't enforce his will upon us, he should tell us what's going on and listen to what we have to say. I do care about what happens to GuildWiki and I think the IE pop thing was a mistake, I agree with Karlos and Tanaric here, I'd also like to see the major site changes, non-related material etc. being discussed first. If there's a specific vision for GuildWiki, I'd like to know that too. And it should not be on some far away blog (or any other blog for that matter, it should be on the GuildWiki). --Xasxas256 01:17, 5 January 2006 (UTC)


 * First of, the site belongs to whoever registered the domain and made the contract with a server provider (I guess that is Gravewit). The is no law that prevents him from doing whatever he wants with the site. That being said, it would be extremely unwise to do so. Why? Because a wiki is to 99.9% founded on the contributions of its members. And the members of this wiki contributed while implicitly assuming that this wiki would be used for the information of GW players and for that purpose only. Abusing that trust is not illegal (I dont even know if the assumption was well founded, i.e. if Gravewit ever said something accordingly), but it definitly would lead to users stopping to contribute as much as before and therefore lowering the value of guildwiki.


 * Think of it another way: If Gravewit would annonce today that he is closing down guildwiki, would there be any shortage of people setting up a new domain for guildwiki2 and paying for it? I believe no. So Gravewit deserves all the praise for starting this, but using guildwiki for anything non-GW (not agreed on by all contibuters) would undermine the very goal he tried achieve when starting the wiki. --Xeeron 08:25, 5 January 2006 (UTC)