GuildWiki talk:Community portal/Archive 17

traditions/policy

 * Were you aware of the existing Policies and guidelines page? --Rezyk 18:40, 6 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Actually, no, I wasn't. Sorry about that; didn't mean to step on your toes there!


 * That said, I prefer the style of mine better; I'd like to see the GuildWiki forming its own set of policies and standards, rather than detailing how we differ from Wikipedia. Your policies page is still very useful, especially were it moved to, say, Differences between the GuildWiki and Wikipedia.  Would that be an acceptable merger of this process for you? &mdash;Tanaric 19:07, 6 January 2006 (UTC)


 * I would really prefer not to do things that way, especially not for the process of initial construction/ratification. I think it will be easier and much safer for policy to take baby steps starting with a minimalist approach (and I have been pondering over the best way for 2 months while waiting for enough people to realize the need for this).  My strong suggestion is to keep things minimal and easily digestible at least until we can reach a consensus on what is a fair documentation of current policy/tradition/guidelines.  Then again, I might not be being fair to your style because I'm not quite sure exactly how it is supposed to work (for example, are we writing what reflects current policy, or what we think is good policy?).  --Rezyk 20:07, 6 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Whoops, never mind that last question.. I was getting confused by the "Only revert once" you added (I assumed it was like Wikipedia's Only revert once). --Rezyk 20:19, 6 January 2006 (UTC)


 * How much more minimalist can I get? I only wrote seven articles.  That's *nothing* for me! ;)  More seriously, I agree with you on the baby steps bit.  That's why I wish to do it this way.  With your method, we slowly diverge from Wikipedia, adding in our own flair slowly as we go.  This would be great if we designed our inital policies around Wikipedias so long ago; the problem is... well, we didn't.  It started as Gravewit, Nunix, Lord Biro, as well as me and everyone else around last May started doing things in a standard way.  Hence our vastly different revert policy, as well as the much more pronounced role of admins around here.  We never attempted to incorporate Wikipedia policies into daily life here (we were initially most like the A Tale in the Desert wiki, which is the first wiki I've ever used, and since most everything I suggested became accepted here, well...).


 * You mentioned "ratification." Such a process is unnecessary, I think, since we already have well-known standards and traditions.  I'm just trying to write down what already exists.  There are plenty of things I think should change (especially item and skill capitalization), but what we've got has actually worked really well for the last 7 months.  My only desire is to express these traditions in a concrete way to new contributors to the site; we didn't have >200000 hits per day when this started, so such documentation wasn't necessary. :)


 * Please give a more expansive argument if you still disagree, as I may have misunderstood your first one. :) &mdash;Tanaric 23:03, 6 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Ok, I'll do a nono and comment before having read the actual pages (*shakes fist at server* if only they would finish loading today):
 * I disagree strongly with "ratification" being unnecessary. These pages very much define how this wiki is supposed to function and should there happen future conflicts (as there inevitably will), people will use these pages as a basis for their arguments. Even is we all 100% agree on everything written there, these pages are so fundamental that we should have some formal process in adopting them.
 * (pages finally loaded and read)
 * That stuff looks very good to me Tanaric. However I would love a long long list, where we gather everything that we think should be written down that concerns the wiki policy and not the content from the most important (treating others with respect) to the more profane (adding new topics at the bottom (or do we want top? I dont care but one should be it) of a talk page). Then it is much easier to order it into articles and especially we will not fall into the trap of creating different sets of policies that co-exist, at worst contradict each other. --Xeeron 13:52, 7 January 2006 (UTC)


 * I generally agree with all this. --Rezyk 21:25, 10 January 2006 (UTC)


 * My main goal is basically the same as what you said: "to express these traditions in a concrete way to new contributors". But I also have these secondary goals in mind, with varying degrees of importance:
 * Minimize the policy content that a diligent wiki-newbie needs to go through to be reasonably comfortable in contributing/debating.
 * Minimize the policy content that a diligent, experienced wiki user that is new to GuildWiki needs to go through to be reasonably comfortable in contributing/debating.
 * Minimize the content that a user needs to go through to effectively defend against abusive behavior.
 * Minimize potential for disputes over specific policy content.
 * Minimize the amount of new content that GuildWiki needs to maintain.
 * Make these traditions very visible and spelled out so that they can be more easily discussed.
 * Put a decent amount of more weight behind these traditions to make them more effective in reducing strife (this ties into the topic of ratification, which I'll try to keep in its own subthread).
 * Try to reduce/avoid beauracracy.


 * In my own quite subjective assessment, my style fares better (though not necessarily by a lot in some cases) in #2, ~#3, #4, #5, #7, #8, and overall, mostly by virtue of being comparatively succinct. I guess my position is that we should start with the most succinct possible formulation of policy (in terms of the content hosted on GuildWiki) that is still accurate and reasonably complete.  For size, I've been assuming that your style eventually adds a lot more pages, such as making equivalent GuildWiki pages of stuff like Wikipedia's No Personal Attacks, what constitutes vandalism, Etiquette, Be Bold, etc etc.  Lately I'm not sure if I'm confused on this point -- if so, let me know.


 * I'm still confused about what you are saying is not so good about my style. No matter how the current traditions were arrived at, a lot of them still ended up being shared with Wikipedia, as far as I can tell.  I see the two styles as spelling out the same stuff, just through different formulations.  I do dislike that I am relying on a lot of content hosted on Wikipedia, and can see it expanding into your style as needed in the future (are you talking about how the styles affect future policy evolution?), but see my style as an intermediate step in getting there.


 * Anyways, this is all stuff I recognize as very very subjective, is not to be taken as fact, and is just meant as an explanation of my internal reasoning. I'm still quite open to the possibility that my perceptions of current policy are vastly flawed compared to others', in which case I could easily revise my position.  (Do you think that the policy page I wrote is significantly inaccurate or incomplete, not counting the TODOs?)  Also, if you want to be more expansive on your reasoning, especially to clear up my confusions, please do.  I think this is a good discussion we're having -- thanks!
 * --Rezyk 15:29, 7 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Number by number:


 * I agree, my style does this better.
 * Disagreed. With your current page, they are required to read the entire bevy of policy articles on Wikipedia to understand the culture here, whereas my breakdown allows quick access to any specific guideline, and a quick summary of all the important points on a single page.
 * See #2.
 * Either way, disputes will occur. Taking an existing body of blatently incorrect policy (Wikipedia's) and trying to wiggle it enough so that it works seems messy.  I haven't written much yet, but that's because I'm hoping you guys will add some of your own.  You seem more concerned with creating policy where none exists yet; while this is an admirable goal, and something we need to eventually do, I want to avoid that entirely until the existing stuff is written down.
 * I don't see this as being a positive point&mdash;who cares how much we have to maintain? If I'm willing to maintain it, it shouldn't matter to you. :)
 * I agree, my style does this better.
 * Articles have weight because people see them as important. All I've got to do is link my articles on the main page, and mine have more weight. ;)  More seriously, both of our beginnings are useful, and so both will have equal weight.  I have no intention of removing what I've written, even if you continue work on your style of page and make it wondrous, because the individual articles are still useful to link a newbie to.
 * My way: just edit the articles, or add more, until everything's there. Your way: ratification and such.  While you haven't detailed what you want to happen, mine is definitely simpler, at least in theory.


 * I think any policy page that attempts to be all-inclusive will fail, just by nature. This is too big to attempt to catalogue it all from the start.  Your page, as it currently stands, would confuse the heck out of any new contributor.  Hell, it confuses me.   Mostly because I'm unfamiliar with Wikipedia policy, and so none of it seems relevant.  I'm not trying to say "Here's a page with all our policies on it."  I'm trying to say "Here's a page with some good guidelines on it."  It will become more complete as time goes on; that's the nature of wiki.  In comparison, your page reminds me of something I'd post as a "Forum Rules" section on a moderated web forum.  It would be excellent in that context.  I don't think it's very wikilike; if I went and added something, it wouldn't make sense, and it wouldn't be helpful.  In contrast, if you add another note to the page I started, great!  It's more complete, and it's obvious how to do so.


 * It seems like recently we've forgotten that this place is a wiki. I'm trying to embrace that more.  Edit my work!  Expand upon it!  Let's grow together!  To be blunt, I'd have no idea how to contribute to your article, even if I had known about it, so I'd have started my own anyway. &mdash;Tanaric 17:17, 7 January 2006 (UTC)


 * I disagree with almost all of this, but as it's mostly subjectively (I can understand your positions although I don't agree with them), it's probably not worth pushing the points further. I should mention I am thoroughly confused about what is supposed to be so hard or convoluted about contributing to my version, and how that would justify starting a new project rather than working on improving/discussing those aspects within mine.  Anyways, if it's decided that your version will stay as is, I'd prefer that my effort is closed down (so as not to split up focus on this effort), and possibly reviving a "difference from Wikipedia" page later on, once stuff is more solid.  I do hope I am wrong about where your version will lead us. --Rezyk 21:25, 10 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Rezyk, your entire article, except the first and last line, is a list of exceptions to Wikipedia policy that we follow. This is something I cannot contribute to, as I do not know Wikipedia policies.  Secondly, as noted in GuildWiki talk:Policies and guidelines, the general consensus is that we should document only policies that actually exist; as you have not detailed every exception from our policy to Wikipedia, and we can probably never actually do so, since Wikipedia policies do change over time, we would be stating that certain non-existant policies exist.  This is wrong.


 * The only way I could meaningfully contribute to your article is if I wiped all the content and started over. I feel more comfortable with not doing that.  That said, I am going to move your page to Differences between the GuildWiki and Wikipedia, as it is a more appropriate title, and then I'll link both that and ours from Policies and guidelines.  I do not wish to "close your effort down" (though you are of course free to stop working on it), as I feel, even as is, it's a useful article, if incomplete. &mdash;Tanaric 15:58, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Everyone, there is also a discussion about admin policy starting at GuildWiki talk:Mission statement. --Rezyk 20:48, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

growing pains

 * I would like to categorically disagree with the statement that you have the power to do anything to the wiki as you please and also to categoically disagree with your statement that only Michael and Phil are to ever be admins until they choose otherwise. Both statements are in and of themselves an abuse of power. If I joined this site knowing that one day you can turn it into a porn site or a Pizza Hut fansite, do you think I would have put in all the work and hours and effort that I did? I believe the same applies to every serious contributor who ever contributed a single letter to this wiki.
 * You need to drop the benefactor language, you need to recognize you are just another contributor who happens to be admin and you need to show good faith not by giving us your kind word that you will not wipe out the hard drive when you feel like it but by actually bringing in someone else to help admin the site for those days when Phil has ebola and Michael feels cranky as you put it.
 * I am not beating around the bush. Each time you have attempted to "solve" the issue you did two things: a) You made "concessions" instead of admitting "rights" and b) you tried to end any and all debate on the matter. I believe you, sir, have very poor leadership skills and as such this is why I have refused, and will continue to refuse to leave the wiki under your merci. You may be the best site admin in the universe, but you are extremely poor at communicating with us, addressing our needs and even recognizing our needs.
 * I would like to point your attention to your statement that you maintain the right to do another splash page in the future which is a recant of your earlier position. It is such childish abuse of power that I am opposing and fighting right now. We had your word that you would not do such things again and POOF now it's gone. Well, I do not want your word. I want you to be accountable just like everyone else in the process.
 * You are very correct that this wiki has grown into an amazing thing and it has done so because of your very good server administration as well as the contributions of hundreds if not thousands of people. Yet, this wiki was founded on an ideal, and that ideal is being challenged by you right now. When I signed on, I was never told that, nor perceived in anyone else's beliefs that Gravewit holds absolute power over the wiki to do with as he pleases. I perceived that Gravewit was chosen among the senior contributors to run that end of the wiki just like Tanaric was doing Case Crusades and Lord Biro was working on the BeastBox. Had I known that this was Gravewit's site and that I and my work would be subject to his whim, I would have taken it elsewhere. Because I know from first hand experience that an unaccountable supreme leader only leads to failure.
 * --Karlos 01:18, 7 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Erm, Karlos? I'm not sure you're reading this the same way I am.  Somebody has to have access to the server; that's just the way it is.  Nunix's statement above is a promise to never abuse that power.  Isn't that pretty much what you wanted? &mdash;Tanaric 02:05, 7 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Ditto Tanaric. They didn't say they have a "right" do to another splash page.  Nunix said the word "ability", and that is true in the objective sense.  Someone has to have access to server code.  Whoever does, will have the ability to put another splash page in.  Having a "right" to do it or not is a different matter. -PanSola


 * No, I am not sure I am reading that in those words:
 * "There's still two guys, two server administrators, who've got access to all that code, to the hard drive. That's not going to change, and they maintain the right to do something like this in the future ."
 * Unless I am misunderstanding the word "this," I believe he was referring to the splash screen mentioned in the previous paragraph.
 * In addition, I do want more than you want Tanaric. I do want there to be a process by which we hold them acccountable, especially the benefactor, Nunix, and do want there to be a process to add or remove site admins. I want there to be a process to add and remove wiki admins too. Why is it that each response from Nunix comes with the "ok, stop discussing this" request somewhere.
 * If this is about admitting that the person who has access to the server has the power to blow up the wiki in seconds. Sure, but that should be irrelevant. If we take regular backups and save more than one copy under different admins, we are safe even from that.
 * I am looking at the whole body of work and... There is mistrust now. I asked nicely, "why did you guys do that?" (something that Nunix seems to have forgotten), and was told off. Then in the apology to being told off I was told it was there till Tuesday no matter what people think. Then when I tried to discuss it on the blog I was told it was just a little thing and no need to make a fuss about it. And when I brought the discussion here I was labeled a traitor and assaulted before all other users.
 * Yes.. I no longer trust Mr.Nunix or his word. And yes, I no longer want him to be solely in charge of this site. But this is not about the specific Mr.Nunix. This is about defining the process and the system so that NO ONE is above or outside the system. If you go to Wikipedia and read about their managing bodies, they are well defined, they are elected and they are accountable. In general, it is good for the wiki to define these things. And I don't see how anyone can say "put a lid on it" or "no defining admin powers is bad." But moreover, since Mr.Nunix has exploded in my face on several occassions, regretted things he has said no more than 10 minutes later and overall showed a lack of interest in taking critcism seriously or dealing with it professionally, I do want others besides him in charge. I do seek more than you seek.
 * Now, if I am misreading the "this" part. Then great, this is a good first step. But I still want site admin powers and duties defined and I still wish to see other admins on board than Nunix and Gravewit and a better explanation than "no we don't need more admins" which has been offered by Nunix. --Karlos 02:28, 7 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Personally, I'm satisfied with the above acknowledgement by Nunix; although I agree that with the growth of the community has come the need for proceedures. I do not see a need for additional site admins; but I would like to see more documentation on adding/removing content admins, policies on reconciling editing/format disputes, and more documentation on the scope (ie: we need a 'vision statement').  The comparisons to wikipedia are irrelevant.  This site, while large, does not compare in size to wikipedia and does not require elected managing bodies at this time. --Barek 02:52, 7 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Karlos: I am sorry you were under the impression that the folk in charge of the server were somehow elected. It may be finally time to do a proper "Meet the Admin" article so readers know who's who in the roster. Phil has, from day one in his User:Gravewit page, been up-front about this, but it's not exactly in an obvious place if you don't already know who he is! So, to clarify: yes, from day one, the database could've been wiped and sold to a squatter. That possibility exists. Just as, as I said in the announcement, we could do a splash page again. That is just pure, straight honesty. Probability, however, is an entirely different thing; I covered that too. Neither of these things are going to change.
 * Also, as far as I know, your first comment was at http://guildwiki.org/wiki/Talk:Main_Page#IE_Popup_on_main_page -- you did, in fact, not ask why, as far as I can tell. If there was an initial comment somewhere before that, can you show me? --Nunix 03:30, 7 January 2006 (UTC)


 * I did not join this community to work for you or Gravewit. Nor do I operate under the assumption that this is Gravewit's site to do with as he pleases and that it was only through his benevolence and good character that this was not abused. If so, then why was he collecting donations? Do my donations count as personal gifts to Phil? I sure as heck had no intentions of giving Phil any gifts (nothing personal). I gave my donation under the assumption that this wiki is for all. I am well aware of Phil's user page and his hatred for dogs. Never did I interpret this as Gravewit exercising supreme power over all, only that he runs the sever side.
 * As long as the "possibility" exists that one day Mike might wake up cranky or Phil might wake up with Ebola and wipe out the server, I cannot be part of this. I cannot help grow this site knowing that in the back of their minds Mike and Phil can ask for fees all of a sudden and despite the complaints of the most senior contributors simply because this site has grown so much and means so much and say, God forbid, their other lucrative plans based on the success of this site do not work out. How much ad revenue is coming in? How much of it is saved for the wiki and how much is put in your pockets or invested in other ventures? Why the lack of transparency? Why is no one else demanding more transparency and more due process?
 * I have learned, the hard way, through many battles, that you can never fight for someone else's rights if they themselves are not willing to fight. I cannot fight for a community that refuses to fight for its rights. People, please speak up. --Karlos 05:06, 7 January 2006 (UTC)


 * I agree that there is definitely a need for more transparency; the server admins have routinely worked without giving any information to the users, and that needs to change. We're a huge organization now, at least, huge compared to when we first started &mdash;suggesting status reports from the administration would have been useless when there were only 20 of us here, but now, I think it's totally warranted.


 * There is no need to fall on your sword for this. While Nunix wasn't particularily friendly in his initial replies, he seems to be very willing to work with us.  His first post up above indicates an epiphany of some sort regarding wiki culture, and I'd prefer to work with him rather than against him on this.


 * "Assume good faith." We toss that around quite a bit here, and I think it's very much applicable here.  Nunix and Gravewit both messed up.  Nunix's post above reads like an apology to me.  The issue before was trust.  We asked whether we'd ever lose control like that again.  He's stated that, while it's impossible for him to actually relinquish the ability to do such a thing, the only reason he'd ever do so is for a GameWikis plug somewhere, which I find acceptable.  I kinda hoped he'd state that in the post above, but he didn't&mdash;now we're forced to piece things together from all over, which makes it trickier to discuss.  Regardless, he's stated that he'll only enact changes in code when it's necessary for the maintenence of the server or when the change is pushed through a community process.  While his grammar is ambiguous, I believe that Nunix intends to never do something like the IE popup again, and that's enough for me -- on that issue, anyway.


 * Even if you were a server admin, Karlos, they could easily change the password to the user table and demote you the next day. Or format the hard drive.  Or anything.  Adding additional server administrators when none are useful to actually carry out the server admin job would be a bad idea at this point.  If there is a desire for some sort of council that guides this place (perhaps include that as part of the role for our admin jobs?), that should be discussed, but it's a very seperate issue.


 * I think an off-site backup archive would help alleviate concern very much; right now, we have no recourse if the server admins go crazy. I'm happy to be the initial mirror for this&mdash;let's work something out.


 * Finally, I agree that Gravewit and Nunix are still learning about how wiki works. And I believe that we can get to a mutually agreeable state.  But I think demanding it, when nobody else is really sure where you're coming from, is more likely to alienate than to create positive change.  I've spoken with you in private, but even I'm a little shocked with these recent posts; it sounds, to me at least, that you're upset certain changes haven't occurred when nobody else realized you were campaigning for these changes to begin with.  This is a rather heated issue, and it's extremely important; let's give it the time it needs to come to a conclusion.  You've got a lot of good points, and I agree with pretty much everything you've said... but I'm supposed to be on vacation, dammit, and I'm sure plenty of the other contributors are too.  Give some time. &mdash;Tanaric 12:20, 7 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Karlos, I am very unhappy with both your first and second reply here, I will put my reply on your userpage as to keep this on topic. Suffice to say here that I do agree with Nunix statement and I give him the trust of not wanting to abuse his powers. --Xeeron 13:11, 7 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Well, you don't enter the trouble-making business to win popularity contests. :) As I said, I think this is a good first step. I do not like the benefactor language.. I cannot imagine the US constitution starting with "While the President DOES recognize that he has the power to totaly make life miserable for all citizens, he promises not to." I just think the text is too arrogant. I am reading this mixed with all the previous stuff they have said in this situation.
 * As I said, there is mistrust. It will take some time specifically for me to forget the initial answer, the follow up, the threat and the overall mishandling of the situation. I can say that I have forgotten it all, but I would be lying. It has greatly skewed my interpretation of words and actions. In Arabic, we have a 1400 year old tradition of the giant bull that exits out of a tiny hole and then turns around and keeps ramming it's head in the wall trying to get back in. We say that is the word. Once it comes out, it cannot be brought back in.
 * I am not saying I am hurt and in need of some TLC, I am saying that you guys are far more forgiving than me. :) But as I said above, I will not fight for rights for people who don't think they deserve them. --Karlos 20:58, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

Other wiki news
I don't know if there's any comic book fans in the group, but I've created a new project: Heropedia. The world needs your fanboy hatred and love. Currently looking for admins, and input. Note: As an experiment, I've linked the GuildWiki tables with Heropedia. You can log in there using your normal GW login. Nifty, no? Gravewit 15:46, 20 October 2005 (EST)
 * Not that it really matters, since comic books aren't my thing, but I can't log in. --Fyren 16:11, 20 October 2005 (EST)
 * I could login, and I shed first blood! >:) --Karlos 17:00, 20 October 2005 (EST)

Maybe we could turn the Community Portal into some kind of dual purpose page. On the left, RSS feeds of news from other guild wars sites, on the right, GuildWiki stuff like what is on there now? Gravewit 18:30, 13 Oct 2005 (EST)
 * Sure. Sounds great! Now if someone would do it. :) --Karlos 17:00, 20 October 2005 (EST)
 * Going to work on on this weekend. Gravewit 07:43, 3 November 2005 (EST)

Renewing The Discussion
So, if we branch out into new games like I described here, what do you think we should call the service? Gamewikis.org is the current front-runner in my mind. It would act as a portal to guildwiki.org and anything else that might go on. Gravewit 18:42, 13 Oct 2005 (EST)


 * I would recommend Gamewiki.org without the plural "s." I may not show up in other MMORPGs, but I would certainly champion some Adventure games and RPGs like KOTOR and NWN. --Karlos 16:15, 20 October 2005 (EST)

Old Stuff
What are the current thoughts on the domain? guildwiki.org, guildwars.gamewiki.org, etc. Gravewit - gamewiki would be great! Adam

Personally I'd prefer guildwiki.org, since that's what this site is called and that's what people will type in if they try and find it. Well, I would anyway. TBH I'm quite happy with the domain as it is for the moment. Zerolives.org/guildwars isn't hard to remember :) - LordBiro/Talk 21:04, 21 May 2005 (EST)

I'd like to keep the actual doman ambigious, (gamewiki.org is taken by some guy who isn't using it. Sad! It expires in September. gamewiki.net is open, though.), so that in the future we can branch out. I know Rood and I have played just about every MMO that's launched in the last 5 years or so. But in the short-frame it might be nice to just use guildwiki.org or something more specific. Gravewit

my minor vote is for guildwiki.org -- it's short, easy to remember, and can be communicated and remembered easily in-game if you tell a friend about it. It's also more intuitive, being the name of the site and all =) --Arc 05:33, 25 May 2005 (EST)

Nothing stopping guildwiki.org redirecting to guildwars.gamewiki.org, funds permitting. That's the ideal solution, I think. Jon.

I agree with Jon. There needs to be room to expand - Mister Walrus

Just read that the domain situation is solved therefore i deleted my post - Newty

Tip Jar
The tip jar links to zerolives.org, this should probarbly be changed =D --Skuld &Dagger; 20:14, 28 Aug 2005 (EST)
 * Done and Done. Gravewit 18:27, 13 Oct 2005 (EST)
 * Thanks Skuld &Dagger; 00:09, 14 Oct 2005 (EST)

This page really isn't serving as a community portal
The title of this page is "Community Portal," yet all it has is our URL on it. Maybe some links to other fansites, guildwars.com, etc.? &mdash;Tanaric 20:44, 2 Aug 2005 (EST)
 * That's actually a good idea. kaarechr 20:46, 2 Aug 2005 (EST)
 * You say that as if my ideas are usually horrible (don't respond to that ;)). In any case, this is something I cannot help with, as my workplace has WebSense installed, and I cannot access, say, the guildwars.com fansite listings or any of the fansites themselves.  And I refuse to do any serious wikiwork on my own time when I can be paid for it instead. :) &mdash;Tanaric 20:48, 2 Aug 2005 (EST)
 * One of the problems I see in this though is what the criteria for sites should be? There are alot of GW sites out there with varying content. And do we link to guild pages as well? One option could be to create a set of rules that the induvidual sites should comply to in order to be included (much like on guildwars.com) and a set of categories. But I don't know if this is overkill.
 * We've got plenty of space on the page. Anyone aught to be able to add their link.  Guilds might belong on a subpage.  Or perhaps we should allow guilds to use this wikispace as their own?  Let any guild create a page with their name, and subpages at will?  For example, my guild, the Sacred Dragon, could create a page describing themselves generally, and then make Sacred Dragon/Recruitment for details on our recruitment policy, so on and so forth. &mdash;Tanaric 22:01, 2 Aug 2005 (EST)
 * Sounds good to me. I propose the following groups/categories:
 * Official GW pages (like guildwars.com and e.g. directsong.com)
 * Fan sites (like gwonline.net and crossingtyria.com)
 * (Possibly subcategorize these in gold/silver/bronze or something)
 * Guild pages
 * Various sites (not enough content to clasify as fan site)
 * kaarechr 22:11, 2 Aug 2005 (EST)
 * While this thing about guilds creating their own pages on GuildWiki is generally a good idea, I'd be cautious about that. It might get out of hand. People tend to take an ell, if you give them an inch... But I agree we don't need a special set of rules for what links are allowed. Instead of their status I'd rather just subcategorize fanpages by language. In fact I'd just sort all categories in alphabetical order. I definitely would not somehow "rank" websites, like site A is better than site B. --84.175.85.254 22:26, 2 Aug 2005 (EST)
 * GuildWars.com itself ranks fansites. If we used the official fansite rankings, it would be okay. &mdash;Tanaric 23:24, 2 Aug 2005 (EST)

Stolen content
I don't know where to put this http://home.iprimus.com.au/ianclark/dinew/index.htm this guild's site has taken a few of the larger pages and put them on their site without linking back Skuld &Dagger; 01:18, 18 October 2005 (EST)


 * I tried to send them a note about our license, but their "contact webmaster" link is down. --Karlos 02:01, 18 October 2005 (EST)
 * It's working now: http://home.iprimus.com.au/ianclark/dinew/form.htm  --Caspian


 * No, it's not. After you fill up the form, it says mesage sending is disabled. --Karlos 07:42, 1 November 2005 (EST)


 * I wrote a post on their forum. &mdash;Tanaric 11:42, 4 November 2005 (EST)


 * Thanks. Though it doesn't seem like a very active place. --Karlos 12:47, 4 November 2005 (EST)

GuildWiki translated into other languages
I'm interested in making the contents of GuildWiki available in Traditional Chinese. Should I just go elsewhere (maybe Wikicity), start it up, and just reference back that all the info (at least the ones when I initially set up) are from GuildWiki, or is there mechanism (and interest, and server ability to cope) here to host a Traditional Chinese version? Consider how hardcore Asians (generally speaking) can get at gaming, they might be able to provide much more data from researchs in the long run (by chapter 2 or 3)... at least that's my wishful thinking d-: -PanSola 13:00, 10 January 2006 (UTC)


 * I suggest using the two-letter ISO character code of China, "zh", as a namespace. That way, if organization is changed later on, we can change the namespace to an interwiki link (probably to zh.guildwiki.org) and none of the old links need to change.


 * However, I'm unaware if there are any language features built into MediaWiki. If there are, my advice is irrelevant.  The decision to include non-English content should be "yes," but the actual implentation is something for Gravewit and Nunix to figure out and, if multiple good solutions exist, propose to us. &mdash;Tanaric 15:35, 10 January 2006 (UTC)


 * We'd need multiple admins who can read chinese, for one thing. Right now, there's just no way we can deal with the server load, having two languages. It's something I've wanted to do for awhile, but it's just not feasible with things how they are. 68.251.127.146 15:49, 10 January 2006 (UTC)


 * No, we wouldn't. We only need admins when admin requests start coming in, since all we practically do is delete pages.  I do agree about server load, though.  This is already miserable. :)


 * PanSola, if you want a scratch space to begin work for now, you're welcome to use http://www.tanatopia.net, my personal installation of MediaWiki (with almost nothing on it). Since the page titles will be traditional Chinese anyway, I doubt we'll have any article name collisions. :) &mdash;Tanaric 15:55, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Yeah server load is one big concern of mine (if I could generalize the chinese community as being more likely to be hardcore and do tedious research, then I can also generalize them as being less likely to donate money to the operations of the site, but that's just my personal opinion d-: ) -PanSola 16:05, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
 * For the zh thing, are both traditional and simplified chinese under zh? If so I'm sad (I'm a snobby "traditionalist" who doesn't like having anything to do with the simplified character set d-: ) -PanSola 16:05, 10 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Ok, so I didn't pay too much attention to this because my knowledge of the Chinese language is pretty much limited to Jackie Chan films and my local Chinese resturants, but are we going to be adding chinese characters to every article now? 'Cause, I'd have to kinda say I'm not a fan of that.  See recent changes to Index of Skill Lists for what I'm talking about.  --Rainith 02:40, 11 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Uh. Wow. No. I'm glad you pointed that out, Rainith, I'd completely missed it. The problem with dual-language articles is if we do it one place, we have to do it every place. I think.. maybe.. a small set of translated pages would be okay: Main Page, the Quick Skill Reference lists, Mission List would probably cover most-popular bases. As a kind of guidepost so folk who read Chinese but not English at least have a pointer of where to go for the hard data, or to know what they're babelfishing. I think that's really the limit of where to go, for the moment, as far as Chinese (by the way: are we talking Mandarin here? I know there are a freaking tonne of mutually unintelligable "dialects" around the mainland, despite sharing a written system, so..). I think it'd also be okay to do a similar thing for Korean, but I'm under the impression that, like Japan, English is a pretty common language in schools there, so maybe it's not an issue.. --Nunix 03:19, 11 January 2006 (UTC)


 * I see the problem with dual language articles is then everyone would want THEIR language in it, and each article will explode in a big fireball, so I took the liberty to revert the skill list indexes.
 * Anyways my plan is to have articles in Traditional Chinese (since we are talking about the written characters, the dialect is assumed to be Mandarin) on most of the stuff such as Skills, Missions, Quests, Bestiary, NPCs, Weapons/Items, Damage, Animal Companion etc etc. Things I personally don't care if they get translated are Builds and previous Game Updates before 2006 January 27 (before official release in Taiwan).  I think it'll still be a big-subset of the GuildWiki articles.  If that's all cool, I await instructions from the site admins on whether it should go under the zh namespace as suggested by Tanaric (would it be MainPage substitute "MainPage" for the equivalent in Chinese? I'm not sure what happens if in the future someone also starts a simplified chinese edition, besides linking for pages under a namespace and hiding that namespace for every link is a great pain), or just leave it in the main namespace or something different altogether? -PanSola 06:17, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Hey Nunix, any news on whether the chinese articles should go under the main namespace, under the zh: namespace (does that mean every link I make will have to look like This ?), or do something else with it?

Anyways here are some of the articles I would like to have for Chinese readers (approximately in order of importance to me):
 * 1) A English-Chinese translation reference guide (or maybe more than one, it's getting pretty huge now) - so people who read mostly Chinese can look up what an English term refers to in an English article (quite a few of the Chinese translations don't really follow the original meaning, even if their level of English is competent), or use that as a guide to communicate with a different player using English ("How do I say 'bonus'?  oh I'll copy and past that word).  This translation guide will include mission/quest names, mob/boss/npc names, interface component names, names that appear in the Lore, skill types, weapon types, upgrade components, etc.  Think of it as a giant Slang and terminology that goes between English and Chinese.
 * 2) Damage.  I already posted a Chinese version on a chinese fan forum anyways, so the work is 90% done.
 * 3) Animal companion.  Same as Damage.
 * 4) Bow (80% done due to my post on a fan forum)
 * 5) the Green weapon quick reference lists
 * 6) SF Boss Locations

I guess for more "individual" articles I should take it to wikicities? -PanSola 07:17, 12 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Whether or not we end up supporting Chinese pages, they will not be in the same namespace as the regular articles. So, if you wish to continue on this work (which I think is a great thing), then I suggest you use a temporary namespace, GuildWiki-Zh or something. And then place the articles you wish inside it and with chinese titles. --Karlos 08:34, 12 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Not wanting to disencourage you, but non-english language articles is opening a big, big can of worms that I'd rather like closed. For example, you will have to look up the in-game names of all articles (instead of literally translating). What is even worse, if some people edit the chinese wiki and some the english one and not enough both at once, we could have diverging wikis soon. Whenever I want to look something up on wikipedia and I have to check both the english and the german one (because I do not know which is better and they are not similar) I get utterly annoyed by that. And what if the information I seek is actually in spanish only (which I dont speak)??
 * If possible, I would prefer this to stay stricly one language. --Xeeron 08:47, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
 * 1. The looking up in-game names of all articles instead of literally translating is actually CLOSING a can of worms that multi-language can bring, since you have one official name for each in-game term, instead of having pages of debate on the talk page on who's translation is better, and everyone will have a different scale of which criterion is more important. Besides, looking up in-game names is what we do with English articles anyways.
 * 2. Which is the worse of the evils? A. having certain info in wikipedia that is in the spanish version only, leaving the potential for one day a contributer who handles both english and spanish to notice it and add it to the english page.  B. wikipedia does not support spanish, and the certain info isn't on wikipedia at all because the person who contributed it only knows spanish?
 * Will it be any better in terms of the spreading of information/knowledge if I just go somewhere else to start a wiki for the Chinese reading/writing population?
 * My personal biggest worry (and currently the only thing that really worries me) is potential increased server load without an equally increased in donation to keep things going smoothly. -PanSola 10:59, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Update: During the time when GuildWiki was getting really bogged down, I went ahead and opened a new wiki over at wikicities, and slowly migrated some stuff there. One thing I noticed though, was that this wiki uses Creative Commons license whereas wikicities uses GNU FDL. Does this mean I'm technically not allowed to port stuff over? since most licenses require that redistribution uses the exact same license.

The location of my wikicities is at guildwars.wikicities.com. On the main page at the bottom it references GuildWiki as the source of most of the info. -PanSola 10:46, 11 February 2006 (CST)

Search
As you might've noticed, I've changed the Search function in the siderbar to use Google Search. There's a very good reason for this: Mediawiki's built-in search was just killing our server. Just changing the sidebar dropped server load by a substantial margin. You can still access normal search by going to Special: Search. Don't abuse it. Gravewit 14:17, 31 December 2005 (UTC)
 * I was wondering about that, spent 10 minutes searching my computer to see if it was a setting in my browser that was doing that (since I have the google toolbar & deskbar). The only problem I see is that that Google seems to find articles that no longer exist. For example Kyla doesn't exist but if you search for it it comes up as a page. Weirdness. --William Blackstaff 16:15, 31 December 2005 (UTC)
 * It appears that searchme.php doesn't let you search if you dont specify whether you want to Go or Search. It just returns a blank page if you type something in and press ENTER (the "go" and "fulltext" variables would then be blank). You should fix this as it's a great timesaver. Kidburla 07:24, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Actually default MediaWiki behaviour; pressing enter/return will act as Go (as in, it will try and find a page with exactly that name), and to Search you need to actually use the button. It takes some getting used to, but when you know the page you're looking for, it's actually pretty nice to not have to hit F6 (or equivalent) and edit the URL directly. --Nunix 07:30, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Hi, and thanks for the quick reply. However, perhaps you didn't understand my question. I am using IE6. When I type in, e.g. "The Catacombs" to the search box, and press ENTER, I am redirected to, a blank page. The default MediaWiki behaviour (and in fact what is used on Wikipedia) is to automatically press the "Go" button when you press ENTER. The relevant HTML snippet is here:


 * 


 * 


 *  &amp;nbsp;


 * 




 * Perhaps if you set one of the buttons as a default action, or if you edited searchme.php to do Go by default, then the problem would be fixed. But surely it isnt intended to go to a blank page? Kidburla 08:20, 10 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Ergh, weird. It's working in Firefox. =/ Will look at it today. --Nunix 15:42, 10 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Seems someone else has had a similar problem: Software & Technical Issues/Bugs. Kidburla 17:24, 10 January 2006 (UTC)


 * It's working now, thanks. Moving this discussion over to the talk page. Kidburla 14:04, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Missing Topics
Noticed there have been some site maintenance lately, and not sure what was worked on, but I have noticed some missing data recently. Most noticable and possibly one of the more helpful articles on GuildWiki is the collectors list. Seems its missing from the main page now. Noticed this about 2 days ago or so.

One more thing I have noticed lately as I travel through the site, I get more database query errors, than I did before say last week or so. Not even sure I even got them then.

Love the site, just now started(after all this time :P) to help contribute to it. And lord knows I hope this is in the right section.

-Gares


 * The missing collectors list is due to the new main page layout (the old one was getting to long). You can get to the list by taking the NPC link, on that page you'll find a link to the collectors. The data errors/maintaince is basically our server being unable to cope with the demand lol. Hopefully we will find a solution (speak: the money) for that problem soon.


 * Welcome to the wiki =) --Xeeron 10:53, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Transparent & Sustainable Model
Ok, the present "Oh crap, server is overloaded, cough up more cash" model is not one that I think we can sustain for very long. I believe we can and should do better.

First of all, we need transparency. The ledger says we have $350 to spare, and we have ad revenue in untold amounts, yet Nunix says we need to donate more. Why is this? The picture does not add up. One would assume with all the traffic that is bogging down the site that the ad revenue is doing good. We need to knwo these things, not because I asked for them, but because they will help with the next item.

Next, we need to develop a SUSTAINABLE model. Our current model is not sustainable. We need to be able to say, our expenses are X, our income from ads is Y, therefore, our shortfall is N, so, we need to do two fundraising drives to make that amount. Let's do the drives around the major releases when everyone is clamouring for new infromation. We can't keep waiting for the server to crash and then beg people for money when we are offering them inferior service.

You thoughts? Or are you all busy playing Assassin and Ritualist? --Karlos 02:11, 22 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Couple quick points:
 * Google ad revenues come in sporadically, and are part of a general "gamewikis" server fund; they're totally seperate from donations. This is an edit/revision to previous statements of mine; I'm pretty sure I alluded that they'd be included by the ledger, but I don't generally deal with the money stuff, so this is honest trip on my part. Right now, it's all going to the same place, tho, so it's relatively irrelevant. I know that might stray into previously-hot territory, so if that's another discussion that needs to be had, start/continue it elsewhere and ding me a Talk message so we can keep conversations organised.
 * Twice now I've given TWO options: more donations, or more ads. Please do not write in such a way as to insinuate anyone is saying, "Give us more money!" Instead: "More money is required." Any and all avenues should be discussed.
 * For maybe the third time: ad revenue can sustain AT CURRENT LEVELS. Which, as many people have said, IS NOT OKAY. Could we blow it all on one month of super-great service? Yep. Know what would happen the month after that? Whole thing would be down. It's not purely an issue of "we have N dollars this month," but projecting out 12 months and making sure there's cash enough for a set level of service at each of those months. --Nunix 14:10, 22 January 2006 (UTC)


 * I guess what is needed most is more information. We have only a rough idea how expensive the current server is and no idea how expensive a better server would be. Plus we have no idea how much add revenue there is. This means noone can know how much donations are needed/would be needed for a better server. If any user looks at the ledger, he/she will conclude there is enough money at the moment. That might be right or wrong, but we can't tell without info about the costs and add revenue. --Xeeron 05:40, 23 January 2006 (UTC)


 * I'll see about setting up a Server article up so folk can see the stats and costs associated with everything. Would that work, Xeeron? You're right, this is one of those cases were I just sort of expect people to magically know things. ;D --Nunix 22:14, 24 January 2006 (UTC)