So. Skyward Sword. Well, it's got me thinking. We all know when the big release day comes things are going to be hell and frenzyish and chaotic; IPs and new users or just people randomly creating hasty pages with incorrect form and names (E3 '10, anybody?). So I was thinking we need guidelines here.
Firstly, I thought of the following message that could be used as one of those wiki-wide messagey thingies or whatever.
We can't just go around keeping every random page that comes up, obviously; we'll have to make sure people are citing their sources (i.e. Prima Guide, specific quote from the game) or an administrator confirms it (I think we can trust them >.>). Otherwise things'll be hell. We make sure admins confirm stuff or there's a source and all that...And yeah. I don't have many other ideas than that but we need some sort of guidelines or we'll be accepting everything and there will be so much edit conflict things'll never get done.
Possible ideas for guidelines
- Cite your sources. Sources must be clear and official (i.e. GameFAQs Skyward Sword Message Board - OMG NEW KNEWZZZZZ!!1! is not going to cut it). Examples are Nintendo websites, official game guides, specific quotes from the game. Stuff that just comes out of nowhere made by an IP just does not cut it. I guess if it's made by an Administrator then we'll deem it confirmed because admins know better than to run around making random pages with unofficial names.
- Wait for the US release. Because this is a primarily American wiki, it makes sense for us to wait for the American release. If we go adding Japanese content names and all that, we've got craploads of unofficial names. Then when the American game comes out we have to move all pages and all references to that page's name. It'd be hellish. Adding bits of information such as "Link comes from the Sky Loft and goes to the Hyrule Castle, blah blah where he meets Zelda" is one thing, but Japanese content names...It'll get out of hand.
- About gameplay. When this information comes out through the Japanese release, we should probably add it; gameplay can easily be implemented without US names etc.
This is all I can come up with for now; any ideas just leave a message.
Discussion
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can't we just semi protect the whole wiki so only accounts older than a few days can edit it? Iv'e heard of stuff like that before, where wiki's go into "lockdown" before a major games release to prevent spam, but I'm not sure how easy it would be.--Hylianhero777 (talk) 16:24, January 12, 2011 (UTC)
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- Could you explain that to me again JML? I've read every post of the indecent you're referring to and don't quite understand what you're saying about it or what you're suggesting we do here. As for the more immediate topic, I think these ideas sound good:
Citing things: This is a big one that I think would be really helpful, but as it's not our normal policy to require citations I don't know how to take it. One important thing to remember is an attention to detail. For example, random people saying "It happened in the game" is not going to cut it in all cases. I believe many of you are familiar with the term HoT87ism. People love to make little assumptions and edit them into the wiki at the same time as concrete information. People who comb the recent edits list can't always readily say it didn't happen, or it doesn't occur to them that they are suspect ideas in the first place. People read these pages and believe things are true, then put them on other pages, and the next thing you know the whole wiki, for as long as anyone can remember, says that you fight Aveil in Majora's Mask and that Sages can't marry. I can't tell you how many of these kinds of things I've corrected, and some of them take a lot of research to prove wrong (in game, text dumps, video searches), while they would only have taken a short time to prove right when first posted. I shudder (violently) at the thought of trying to test an OMG-NEW-ZELDA level flood of information that random people have added just on their word, for a game so recent that there are no text dumps or video walkthroughs to search. On the other hand, people making such edits about a new release have just seen the proof (if there is any) right there, and should be able to provide it with relative ease.
US Names and Gameplay/Generic things: If we want to wait for the official american release, which makes sense, we're not going to be able to say much of anything. You can't describe an item, character, enemy, or location without using it's name.
Blocking IP Edits: This would go a long way towards avoiding shoddy information, and just keeping the wiki manageable. Also if you have to have an account (and if people who just made one actually come back and check them), we can ask people for sources to questionable information even should we allow stuff to go up citation free. If the wiki is open to IPs, are we all going to be calling our non-ZP friends to let them know we're not dead, just still editing, and to bring more coffee and doughnuts cause there's still like 90 more recent edits to go over, and could you cut up the doughnuts so I can eat them with a fork and not get my hands sticky since I'm typing??... I haven't been around here long enough to know what a post-release edit rush is actually like. Sorry about the text wall everyone.--FierceDeku 12:12, January 23, 2011 (UTC)- Basically, I'm trying to say if we decide to make people cite sources when adding information, we should be able to seek out a source ourselves if one isn't provided and use common sense to tell whether we even need a source. Jedimasterlink (talk) 14:26, January 23, 2011 (UTC)
- About blocking IP edits- we obviously can't block all IP edits to the wiki, but I think protecting SS pages to accounts 3 days or older or something would definitely make sense. EDIT: I see where you're coming from, JML. It makes sense to use...common sense to figure whether or not we even need sources...-Minish Link 15:14, January 23, 2011 (UTC)
- Basically, I'm trying to say if we decide to make people cite sources when adding information, we should be able to seek out a source ourselves if one isn't provided and use common sense to tell whether we even need a source. Jedimasterlink (talk) 14:26, January 23, 2011 (UTC)
I was only around for spirit tracks, and that blew over farily well, but as it was on a handheld and not a high profile release, this will probably be much worse. and yes, I'm familiar with "that term" if only because the wiki is still suffering from it's effects somewhat.--Hylianhero777 (talk) 12:33, January 23, 2011 (UTC)
Bringing this back from the dead
The impending release of Skyward Sword will probably be upon us soon, so, er.... -Minish Link 15:35, April 23, 2011 (UTC)
- Do not create a new page for a character that is already in the series. Instead, add the information to the page.
- Make sure you title the pages correctly.
- Make sure a page you are creating isn't already created.
- Use "Link" over "You".
- Use "It is" over "It's".
All seem like basic "Edit Zeldapedia for Dummies" stuff. But yeah, most likely going to have to smack down on them this time. We might as well include OoT3D in this too. --BassJapas 15:38, April 23, 2011 (UTC)
- Basically, yeah...If they decide to bump this up and release it both for Project Cafe/Wii 2/Stream and Wii (similarly to what they did with TP) this is going to be even bigger and we're going to have to put this down even harder >.> -Minish Link 15:40, April 23, 2011 (UTC)
Back from the ReDead
Now that the release of Skyward Sword is about two weeks away, we probably ought to put up a site notice linking to a page with some basic guidelines as soon as possible (like, within the next couple days). Regarding the first three pints at the top of the page:
- Let's go ahead and mention citing sources in the edit summary (as long as active users know when sources are actually needed and can verify things themselves if needed, this should be fine).
- It seems that the EU and NA versions will be released before the JP version, so that isn't needed.
- Also not needed as worded for the same reason as #2.
The "ZP for Dummies" stuff immediately above could also go on the guidelines page. Also note that pages should be written in the present tense when writing about events that take place during gameplay. As for the page itself, should that just be a forum, "Zeldapedia:Skyward Sword Guidelines", or something else I haven't thought of? Jedimasterlink (talk) 22:25, November 5, 2011 (UTC)
- We should definitely add this stuff. Anything we can do to mitigate the mass of basic wiki correcting work we're going to need to do would be great. A forum would probably work, or else just make it a zeldapedia colon page title thing like Zeldapedia:Administrators or Zeldapedia:About. Where exactly would this link go up?--FierceDeku 22:17, November 6, 2011 (UTC)
- Everything that Jedi stated sounds just about right, including making a Zeldapedia namespace page. Though, maybe we should make it more along the lines of guidelines for any new games, rather than Skyward Sword exclusively and, as such, name it something along the lines of "Zeldapedia:New Game Guidelines". Zelda being one of Nintendo's largest series, it would certainly save time in the long run. - McGillivray227 23:14, November 6, 2011 (UTC)
Making this a general page for new games is a good idea. At first I thought that the link to the page would go to the sitenotice, except this apparently can be seen only by Monobook skin users, which in turn is only a subset of registered users, which is a problem since most people who would need to see the notice are not registered contributors. Maybe there's some other way to put the link on the main page. Is there some way to just put centered text at the top of the main page? Also, since I prefer the "Zeldapedia:New Game Guidelines" option to the "Forum:New Game Guidelines" option, the former has a slight support (myself and McG) with no opposition (FD seems neutral). We will choose that option if nobody has a problem with it. Jedimasterlink (talk) 07:26, November 7, 2011 (UTC)
- Like we have the news boxes, we should maybe make a new box on the mainpage for site notice information. --EveryDayJoe45 (talk) 13:11, November 7, 2011 (UTC)
Bit late to the party, but I agree, just trying to get a handle on things before it starts raining cats and dogs will be most beneficial.-- C2 / CC 01:20, November 10, 2011 (UTC)
Zeldapedia:New Game Guidelines has been created. I don't have any idea how the coding on the main page works, so if someone who knows how that works could make the announcement box Joe's been talking about and put this link in an announcement in the box, that would be great. Jedimasterlink (talk) 06:45, November 10, 2011 (UTC)