The Future Of The Wiki Mega-Thread

[rollerC]

This is the mega-thread for the on-going discussion about the possibility of a new wiki, and how to handle the move to a wiki. Below, I will include links to notable replies from members as a "Table of Contents", as the discussion continues. "Necessary Discussion" includes topics that will need discussion or are especially important.

Relevant Threads (Please read)
Update the Wiki
Delete the Wiki
2018 Plan Thread

Notable Replies
Vinny's Reply
Mario's Reply, and proposed deletion/archival method

Necessary Discussion

• What to do with the current Wiki ✓
  
• Purpose/focus of the new wiki
  
• Game plan for what the changing process would look like
  
• New Wiki policies
  
• How to encourage editors
  

I've attached a poll to see what members think we should do with the wiki; keep in mind this is not an actual vote, just a poll to see where people's stances lie. Here are descriptions of the options.

• Delete the Wiki: Completely remove the Wiki and do not create a new one
  
• Delete the Wiki and start fresh: Completely remove the current Wiki and start an entirely new one
  
• Archive the Wiki: Archive the Wiki and do not create a new one
  
• Archive the Wiki and start fresh: Archive the current Wiki and start a new one, carrying over important and relevant pages from the current Wiki
  
• Keep the current Wiki as is: No changes.
  

I'm on the MarioBoards, Minus World, and the Bell Tree Forums as rollerC if you wanna check me out.

[Yoshi2000]

I think we should archive it and make a new one or delete the current wiki and start fresh. Though archiving it would be bit more better than deleting it. Doing nothing about the wiki is probably the worst option because of Gengar making offensive edits and the drama pages. And maybe on the new wiki, if one would to try to make a drama page, it would be deleted.

[rollerC]

Just in case anyone doesn't know why this is being considered, essentially a lot of people believe that there are too many drama pages and user pages on the MFGG Wiki that aren't relevant to the goal of the Wiki and only serve to embarrass people.

See the Delete the Wiki thread for more details and reasoning.

I'm on the MarioBoards, Minus World, and the Bell Tree Forums as rollerC if you wanna check me out.

[zelma]

Can I ask why people here are opposed to deleting the wiki and starting fresh? Why are there even other options?

[rollerC]

I was actually going to say the same about archiving the Wiki and starting fresh.

Archiving the Wiki would please both sides; those who want the current Wiki and even the drama pages, and those who want a new Wiki. We can store a link to the archive on the forums, and have the new Wiki linked on the mainpage.

I'm sorry, but I really find it hard to support a full-on deletion of the Wiki, and it'll be hard to get staff to agree with that. Archiving the Wiki is definitely our best bet. I only included the Delete the Wiki options because that's what a few people want, but I don't think that's what'll end up being the popular vote.

I would like to bring up the possibility of a separate, non-MFGG affiliated Userpedia to archive drama if that is what some people really want, but either way, we'll need some of the original articles on the current Wiki to move over and have something to start with on the new one.

I'm on the MarioBoards, Minus World, and the Bell Tree Forums as rollerC if you wanna check me out.

[Shadow Administrator Drei]

The benefit of deletion is no baggage or lazy expectations, whereas archival, as some supporters of the current wiki showcase, would entice low quality content.

[VinnyVideo]

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.

Course clear! You got a card.

[Kritter]

I'm against deleting the wiki because I think history is important, but I'm 100% for archiving it and starting fresh with a more focused wiki that actually aids the purpose of this website.

[rollerC]

By the way, can someone sticky this thread?

I'm on the MarioBoards, Minus World, and the Bell Tree Forums as rollerC if you wanna check me out.

[Cruise Elroy]

Gotcha covered.

Anywho, as I've said elsewhere, I'm pretty much fine with starting anew. I'm not particularly picky on how we go about doing this as long as the current wiki's information isn't permanently wiped.

GOTM Awards:

Spoiler

[rollerC]

Alright, so say we were to archive the Wiki and start fresh, as most of the poll respondents seem to want. What would that look like, what would the intricacies of that look like, and can members help?

I'm on the MarioBoards, Minus World, and the Bell Tree Forums as rollerC if you wanna check me out.

[zelma]

Okay how about keep the wiki but just delete everything not regarding fangames and main site related things. That's what is puzzling to me. This is a new era so why even keep that when it isn't relevant and actually, if you look at it a certain way, detrimental to the community. 80% of you were not even there when those events/members were around and the ones who were/are do not care OR ironically enough, or for a hard wipe and starting from scratch.


It reeks of laziness and MFGG staff should be ashamed except Roller but i blocked him.

[Kritter]

It's History. History should be preserved, even if it sucks. That's my philosophy anyway. We'll just tuck it in a dark corner so only those who really care will bother to find it.

I'd argue it's LESS lazy to make a wiki and archive the old stuff because it means doing more work porting over relevant articles and designing a new wiki etc.

[Heavy Fire]

i think that the Wiki needs a fresh start, but that the old one's content should be archived

I do not want the current one deleted because this is the only spot where you can find a detailed history of MFGG.

[rollerC]

We'll just tuck it in a dark corner so only those who really care will bother to find it.

Yeah, it's not as though archiving it will keep it in the limelight for longer. Instead, when the new wiki is made, we put a banner on every page of the old one that says "We have a new Wiki", so anyone who wants the fangame information from our Wiki will go there and anyone just looking for drama or whatever will stay there. As the old Wiki gets less and less traffic from the 99% of Wiki users who are looking for fangame content (source: Vinny) the new Wiki will rise to prominence, and the only way to find the old Wiki would be to search deep inside the forums.

I'm on the MarioBoards, Minus World, and the Bell Tree Forums as rollerC if you wanna check me out.

[zelma]

Why do you want to archive something that you weren't here for? Specifically speaking to Vinny and co(not Kritter and any other oldbies). The same people who were trying so hard to push away from how the old site were are keeping the very thing that reminds ppl of the glory days in the first place. Just seems backwards but just my opinion and @MFGG_STAFF notoriously hates on the resident goth so I'm done here.

If you want my further thoughts on this subject and MFGG as a whole please refer to this video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xECigynJEpw

[VinnyVideo]

As the old Wiki gets less and less traffic from the 99% of Wiki users who are looking for fangame content (source: Vinny)...

I need to add one important caveat to what rollerC said: 98-99% of people visiting the MFGG Wiki through Google searches are using terms connected to fangames. These numbers don't include someone who finds the Wiki through the mainsite, who has the Wiki in their bookmarks, or who finds the Wiki through a Google search and then clicks on other pages.

I'm launching my own research project to get a better feel for Wiki traffic (beyond just clicks and impressions from Google searches).

Course clear! You got a card.

[rollerC]

That'll be really important data if we want to see just how much traffic the drama and user pages are getting, so good.

I'm on the MarioBoards, Minus World, and the Bell Tree Forums as rollerC if you wanna check me out.

[Cap'n Coconuts]

I wouldn't mind archiving for the sake of salvaging anything that would suit the new wiki's standards. Once the new wiki has a sufficient amount of content for its purposes, the old wiki can be deleted.

[Mario]

We should just delete the wiki. I don't think it makes much sense to dive into creating a new one at the moment. LumaSMS is coming, eventually, and the needs of what a MFGG wiki should be may or may not change when we have new site and forum software. With that in mind, I feel like any hasty reboot is juts going to repeat the mistakes of the current wiki. Hold off on creating a new wiki until we have the new site and forums and figure out if we really need a wiki at all, and if we do, have some good reasons to justify it. The wiki Sysops have said before it's hectic to manage the current wiki and not many people are interested in doing it- I don't think the sudden burst of interest in a wiki is going to last unless we really have a good justification for having it and a solid plan in place; and the solid plan just doesn't make sense to have at this time.

That being said I propose deletion over archiving because I think deleting it can be done in a way that's fair to everyone. We set a specific date when it's going down (maybe a month from when we decide to delete it) and let everyone who's interested know now's the time to grab what you want from there. I won't argue there isn't any interesting information on there someone might want to save, but I don't think we need to keep up a big bloated software open forever because of it. I think this solution would put all parties minds at ease.

If we must archive it, I propose the following. We export all current articles to pure HTML; don't save any revision history or any other kind of meta data. What you see on the wiki now is what you'd get, more or less. This eases the pain of keeping MediaWiki up and running for eternity and keeps the real meat and bones of the wiki around. It makes it simple to manage the archive for whoever has ftp access to it and gets pretty much any potential security issues out of the way. We also block off search robots and remove major links to it. I think all we really need for it is a thread on the forums in the archive boards that links to it really.

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""We choose to go to the [Suggestions board] not because it's easy, but because it's hard; because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win."
- John F. Kennedy"
- gothgirlgangblastermaster