08-05-2018, 05:39 PM
Please add this topic - this is an outline of the strategy we've been using since the MyBB boards opened.
What's wrong with the Wiki?
In its current state, the Wiki is a mess. Only a handful of people contribute to it regularly, and a lot of information is badly out of date. It's not rare to find articles that have barely been touched since 2006 or 2007. The Wiki contains some useful information, but it also contains one-sentence articles about members who made two posts and left, canned fangames with no proof they ever existed, and chronicles of pointless old drama. I wish I had the time to go through every article and get everything fixed up and up-to-date - but this is too much work for one person, especially a person who has a full-time job!
Another problem is the current Wiki is linked to the old phpBB forums. The user pages list now-outdated badge data from the old phpBB boards, and it would take a moderate amount of PHP/SQL wizardry to make them link to the MyBB forums. Moreover, listing badges manually is a painstaking process that I don't think anybody wants to do.
Basically, user pages are out-of-date, they get little traffic, they often contain pointless drama, few people keep them up-to-date for current members, and few people have any way of updating them for members who have left MFGG.
Why can't we delete the Wiki?
However, deletion of the Wiki is a hard no. As noted in my "gameplan" topic, the MFGG Wiki attracts a lot of traffic from Google searches - over 100 clicks per day. The Wiki's SEO is much better than the mainsite's, so it's a great way for people to find information on popular games. All of the top 99 searches for the past three months pertain to popular games, game-making tools, or fangame communities - they're not searching for dumb old arguments. If we removed the Wiki, people would no longer have a way to find important information - such as links to popular fangames or lists of competition winners.
How could we fix this?
Archive and start fresh
Since the Wiki is fundamentally useful but messy, I'd be OK with an "archive and start fresh" plan.
By archiving, I mean archiving the current Wiki and moving it to a less conspicuous place on MFGG. Old pages would still exist in case anyone needs them, but they'd be in a less prominent location (not linked on the mainsite, and maybe not even indexed by search engines). I'm strongly opposed to offloading them to an offsite Wiki, though since this has an excellent chance of being a place for drama and harassment.
By starting fresh, I mean a new clean Wiki where we can move/restore useful articles as appropriate.
Software: Possibly a clean install with the most up-to-date version of MediaWiki, although that might require everyone to re-register, which isn't ideal. So there might be a better way to do this. Either way, this would be a great time to update skins and Wiki templates.
Content: The new Wiki would probably have no articles at all. Then we'd port over articles that we want to have on the Wiki. Manually recreating them would be ideal, so that we verify that any pages are notable, up-to-date, and "Wikified". However, it might be necessary to transfer some pages (like game pages) in automated fashion.
Things to consider for the immediate future
If we do the "archive and start fresh" plan, it won't happen immediately. Both Yoshin and I are very busy with real-life matters, and there a lot of important details we'd need to iron out before the transition can happen. I understand that a lot of people are frustrated with the current state of the Wiki, but we also don't want to be throwing out the baby with the bathwater.
If the MFGG Wiki has any old content that is genuinely hurtful to someone - chronicles of old interpersonal conflicts or sensitive personal information - by all means remove the material in question. If necessary, feel free to contact a Wiki Sysop.
Rest assured, we want the the MFGG Wiki to be a useful and enjoyable place for all, and we're doing everything in our power to achieve that goal. You can help us by sharing your perspectives in a constructive fashion and contributing useful content to the Wiki.
What's wrong with the Wiki?
In its current state, the Wiki is a mess. Only a handful of people contribute to it regularly, and a lot of information is badly out of date. It's not rare to find articles that have barely been touched since 2006 or 2007. The Wiki contains some useful information, but it also contains one-sentence articles about members who made two posts and left, canned fangames with no proof they ever existed, and chronicles of pointless old drama. I wish I had the time to go through every article and get everything fixed up and up-to-date - but this is too much work for one person, especially a person who has a full-time job!
Another problem is the current Wiki is linked to the old phpBB forums. The user pages list now-outdated badge data from the old phpBB boards, and it would take a moderate amount of PHP/SQL wizardry to make them link to the MyBB forums. Moreover, listing badges manually is a painstaking process that I don't think anybody wants to do.
Basically, user pages are out-of-date, they get little traffic, they often contain pointless drama, few people keep them up-to-date for current members, and few people have any way of updating them for members who have left MFGG.
Why can't we delete the Wiki?
However, deletion of the Wiki is a hard no. As noted in my "gameplan" topic, the MFGG Wiki attracts a lot of traffic from Google searches - over 100 clicks per day. The Wiki's SEO is much better than the mainsite's, so it's a great way for people to find information on popular games. All of the top 99 searches for the past three months pertain to popular games, game-making tools, or fangame communities - they're not searching for dumb old arguments. If we removed the Wiki, people would no longer have a way to find important information - such as links to popular fangames or lists of competition winners.
How could we fix this?
Archive and start fresh
Since the Wiki is fundamentally useful but messy, I'd be OK with an "archive and start fresh" plan.
By archiving, I mean archiving the current Wiki and moving it to a less conspicuous place on MFGG. Old pages would still exist in case anyone needs them, but they'd be in a less prominent location (not linked on the mainsite, and maybe not even indexed by search engines). I'm strongly opposed to offloading them to an offsite Wiki, though since this has an excellent chance of being a place for drama and harassment.
By starting fresh, I mean a new clean Wiki where we can move/restore useful articles as appropriate.
Software: Possibly a clean install with the most up-to-date version of MediaWiki, although that might require everyone to re-register, which isn't ideal. So there might be a better way to do this. Either way, this would be a great time to update skins and Wiki templates.
Content: The new Wiki would probably have no articles at all. Then we'd port over articles that we want to have on the Wiki. Manually recreating them would be ideal, so that we verify that any pages are notable, up-to-date, and "Wikified". However, it might be necessary to transfer some pages (like game pages) in automated fashion.
Things to consider for the immediate future
If we do the "archive and start fresh" plan, it won't happen immediately. Both Yoshin and I are very busy with real-life matters, and there a lot of important details we'd need to iron out before the transition can happen. I understand that a lot of people are frustrated with the current state of the Wiki, but we also don't want to be throwing out the baby with the bathwater.
If the MFGG Wiki has any old content that is genuinely hurtful to someone - chronicles of old interpersonal conflicts or sensitive personal information - by all means remove the material in question. If necessary, feel free to contact a Wiki Sysop.
Rest assured, we want the the MFGG Wiki to be a useful and enjoyable place for all, and we're doing everything in our power to achieve that goal. You can help us by sharing your perspectives in a constructive fashion and contributing useful content to the Wiki.
Course clear! You got a card.
![[Image: CourseClear.gif]](https://dl.dropbox.com/s/d5mcpm4nmt0gd14/CourseClear.gif)
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