User talk:Lodurr9827

For the record...
...I totally agree with you re: "I think it's a mistake to move this site away from being a user-friendly encyclopedia that addresses all frequently asked questions, and towards being a site for insiders and the hardcore audience who already know the answers anyway." (from User talk:Fyren)

In the beginning, we wrote down every piece of information we could come by. I myself spent days writing the pre-Searing guide and months recording salvage results. Sure, pre-Searing isn't hard, and salvage results are often obvious, but the spirit of this place was that any information was good information.

Soon into it, we started writing style and formatting articles, and we referenced them heavily. And it seems like not too long after that everybody started missing the point. Our attitude, as a whole, shifted. Instead of "I'll add this bit of information here, because it's useful," people starting thinking, "I can't add this information here, because it would require that we have analogous information in all other articles of this type." Of course, this attitude is blatantly wrong, but none of us seemed to notice this issue until it was too late.

Nowadays, we have editors like Gem. These editors are, well, kids. They've never been involved in documentation or significantly interpersonal projects. They primarily play video games, and that's about it. They usually come from a computer programming background, which makes them highly susceptible to forgetting that humans aren't machines. And, unfortunately, they've been around the GuildWiki for an impressive amount of time and they feel like they still represent the primary audience for this fansite.

Of course, they don't. The vast majority of people who visit here are nameless, 14-24 year old gamers who just want some information. Our editing practices have grown more and more out of touch with what people actually need. The Builds section is a perfect example of this. Regardless of how functional it is now, from an editing/vetting standpoint, it's woefully inadequate as, you know, an actual reference. Most of the "hardcore" editors here have forgotten that we are, in fact, a reference.

I'm sorry about your experiences recently, and I wish there was something I could do about them. I'd been campaigning heavily for months to get this place back on track, but I really don't think it's possible. We're too entrenched in our own self-importance.

&mdash;Tanaric 14:44, 31 January 2007 (CST)
 * I appreciate your sentiment. Don't give up the fight; your recent demotion of a sysop was a step in the right direction.  I might go back to the original skill page that started the discussion and make the same edit without fear of instant reversion.


 * I did the best I could to support my case and to convince the unconvincable. I was pretty puzzled by Gem's conclusion to the issue.  He basically said there were many Notes that were redundant and needed to be removed, but that there were a few that absolutely needed to stay, and it was already clear that my criteria for a useful note was completely different from his.  Your "humans aren't machines" comment is very applicable here.  Technical writing teaches you that uniformity can help people absorb information, but absolute uniformity will make that information difficult to comprehend.  There is always intent in writing.  The point of this site is to make this information available to the average reader, not to categorize information for its own sake.


 * The good news in all this is that most pages still have helpful Notes, even ones that some consider redundant or messy. I often check specifically for these redundant notes because Guild Wars is not a perfectly coded game.  Skills' effects often differ from their descriptions, and it's important to note that, say, Rending Touch doesn't require that you be enchanted to remove an enchantment from a foe, even if the wording made it clear.  Before I hinge the effectiveness of a GvG build on a single skill, I like to double check that Anet interpreted the wording the same way I did.


 * Thanks again Tanaric.--Lodurr 05:30, 1 February 2007 (CST)