My Thoughts on the Wiki

[Pedigree]

Yeah I see no reason for random people to be putting up ANY information about you on the internet without your permission

It's a really weird situation

 

[Razz]

I went and read my user page for nostalgic reasons a few days ago, and it's basically cringe personified.

I'm 100% okay with removing them

AKA Molten_ on the rest of the internet.

Twitter - itch.io - Bandcamp

[DavidCaruso]

I think the wiki in its current state is only useful for drama pages and forum history stuff, actually, and that's the only capacity in which I've ever used it (even back ten years ago).

There's something to be said for that, though. Past incarnations of MFGG had one of the most unique and colorful forum cultures that ever existed, before social media killed the format and the "independent" scene killed fangaming. The wiki, with all its pointless drama and bickering and random off-topic details, is merely a reflection of that. It serves as the only written record about long periods of this community (MFGG3, for example, and I think the ezBoards too), and there are many fantastic users who deeply shaped this forum's culture despite not making many fangaming contributions. LuigiFan, for instance, never finished a fangame and never won any competitions. Are we seriously suggesting to scrub that awesome dude from this community's history?

If someone actively wants their page scrubbed in any way, they should be able to request it, but otherwise I'm completely against deleting anything permanently. Archival sounds like a great option, in the worst case (especially because people are apparently using the wiki to dig up drama from 2008 and harass people? the f***? do you guys have lives?) But I have to ask: are there people today willing to put in the work to completely revamp the wiki, and write these tutorials across a variety of game engines, and all the other content that you would need to make a truly useful fangaming resource? Are there people attempting to write these resources now, who just don't have visibility because of the cluttered wiki format? We weren't able to give the wiki a proper purpose besides "drama repository", 10 to 15 years ago during the height of the planet's interest in fangaming, and right now the tutorials section has like five pages all dating from years ago, so I'm slightly skeptical that rebooting it in 2019 will lead to anything but another empty space. A reboot would fit better with the staff's current vision of the site, of course, but those are my honest thoughts.

Eventually -- this is going to sound like a joke, but it's not -- sociologists will start properly studying early-2000s forum cultures and forum history, and this place is going to be a fantastic find for them. So please keep the current wiki alive or archived in some form, or else Jack Johnson in 2030 won't get his PhD.

[Pedigree]

If people aren't interested in working on making a Fangame resource, we could just archive the wiki and call it a day. Removing any pages that people would like removed about them

Keeping the drama wiki open to new edits only ensures we keep the drama that unfolded here in this thread going

 

[GothGirlGangBlasterMaster]

if only we had some way to contact every notable member of mfgg from before, i dunno, 2008 and tell them to come here so we can ask if they want their page maintained
that would be f***ing crazy though

for any inquiries please contact me in hell

[Fun With Despair]

if only we had some way to contact every notable member of mfgg from before, i dunno, 2008 and tell them to come here so we can ask if they want their page maintained
that would be f***ing crazy though

[The Dark Warrior]

I find reading stuff on the community p enlightening but I feel as if you all pretend to think that the Wiki is the cause of MFGG's current problems when it isn't. Its not there, its people. Just warn and ban those who bring up past beef if they are that clear on being a disruption.

Side Note - Why do I keep missing out on juicy drama such as what unfolded... im too absorbed in playing SMW hacks to notice these things all the time.

[Mario]

I agree that I don't think a new wiki would get much traction even if it's fangame/hack focused. You're welcome to try and prove me wrong though- I think it's a positive goal I just don't see much interest in it coming from the current community.

If we're going to archive it then I have two requests:
- contact any member who has a user page and ask them if they want it to be there. If you can't get in contact, then assume they did not provide consent and remove it.
- remove edit history and just do a static html archive.

The events and whatnot are probably fine but we might want to sift through them with a fine-toothed comb in the archival process just to be sure. There's probably a lot of "oral" history to the community that just doesn't exist in the wiki anyway.

Proud member of the Shadow █████████████

Interested in web development? Check out Super Mario Web Development. Wahoo!

 

""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

[VinnyVideo]

First of all, we should absolutely not be deleting the Wiki without a clear plan to replace its more valuable content. The MFGG Wiki catalogs a lot of useful resources that aren't available anywhere else. The Wiki gets about 70 clicks every day just from Google searches - which is almost four times as many as the MFGG forums. Nearly all of these searches are from people looking for popular fangames. Losing the Wiki would be very harmful to MFGG's search traffic and would cause some resources to become almost impossible to find.

However, I'll be the first to admit that the Wiki is a mess. Much of it is disorganized and outdated - for example, there are a lot of pages that are essentially untouched from 2006 or 2007.

While I think the presence of "drama pages" is overstated, there are a number of pages (mostly user pages) that go into needless detail about little-remembered interpersonal disputes. I don't think there's a need to preserve those for posterity. I don't think the Wiki has a measurable effect on drama elsewhere on the site, though - the nastiest incidents I see people dredging up these days are not documented on the Wiki.

A few people seem to be shocked that users can modify other people's user pages. However, wikis are sites that anyone can contribute to - and that includes user pages. A Wiki page is separate from user profiles (which only users can touch, or possibly admins if you put something blatantly against the rules in your profile). If you've been a significant part of MFGG's history, someone may eventually make a page about you. If you don't like something that someone put in your page, you can update it. If someone's posting content that's clearly false or malicious, you can contact a Wiki staff member who can take action as appropriate. And if there's something on your Wiki page that's especially sensitive, Wiki staff can hide edits from public view.

I'd rather see the Wiki focus more on documenting games and resources, and for sharing useful tutorials. A lot of our more significant pages (for example, for Game Maker) are quite outdated. However, I question whether MFGG has a massive army of people who would suddenly start being active on the Wiki if we archived it and started fresh - instead we'd just have long, drawn-out arguments over what's notable enough to get ported over (or else nobody would do anything and we'd end up with a shell of the Wiki). I think a more workable plan would be to launch an initiative where we go through all the current Wiki pages and confirm they're up-to-date and notable. This would be a huge effort, but we could start with some of the smaller, more important categories and work our way up to the games and members pages.

Personally, I think the best course of action is to continue maintaining the Wiki as is for now. In the long run, I think most of the Wiki's most valuable features could be integrated into lumaSMS - but that's a long way down the road.

Course clear! You got a card.

[MDragmire]

I can't seem to find a way to register. I was going to make some changes to mine. Or do only certain people have access to that?

[GothGirlGangBlasterMaster]

I can't seem to find a way to register. I was going to make some changes to mine. Or do only certain people have access to that?

iirc a wiki admin has to make an account for you
@hypernova

for any inquiries please contact me in hell

[VinnyVideo]

Spambots adore the MFGG Wiki. If we open up registration, spambots will immediately start joining and posting gloriously junky things. We should figure out a captcha system that will keep them out.

For now, if you need to register an account, shoot me a PM and Hypernova and I will help you.

@MDragmire Actually, you already have an account on the Wiki. If you've lost your login details, I can help you.

Course clear! You got a card.

[Yoshin]

Spambots adore the MFGG Wiki. If we open up registration, spambots will immediately start joining and posting gloriously junky things. We should figure out a captcha system that will keep them out.

For now, if you need to register an account, shoot me a PM and Hypernova and I will help you.

@MDragmire Actually, you already have an account on the Wiki. If you've lost your login details, I can help you.

pre-update wiki had a captcha they couldnt figure out
really we should just use google's silent recaptcha

Lando Never Dies
pfp by Plasmi

[Hyper]

I've made an account for MDragmire around few hours ago.

But for me, let me keep it simple for the wiki:
- document fan/indie game pages
- member page should only document: join date, staff promote/demotion/desination if needed, and list of projects.
- document tutorials and resources

I am considering writing a new ruleset for the wiki and possibly an event where everyone contribute to the wiki.

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Main Site | YouTube | Bluesky | My OC

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[MDragmire]

Yeah I just pruned mine and all I left was my join date, tenure as mod, and game dev projects. Don't know how to format it but it's there for me to mess with later. Thanks for all the help.

[GeneralGuy]

if only we had some way to contact every notable member of mfgg from before, i dunno, 2008 and tell them to come here so we can ask if they want their page maintained
that would be f***ing crazy though