Cyber Nations Wiki talk:Village Pump

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Housekeeping Privelages
From now on, in order to keep the wiki running smoothly, bureaucrats may delete pages, and delete pages without pre-approval, however, they must say they did so here on the Village Pump, and provide a link to their contribs. If a user disagrees with any actions, the actions are undone, and then they must pass though the normal process. Aido2002 20:14, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
 * buearacrats exist in order to decide who can be a sysop, you might as well allow that to sysops as well since they have the delete power, they should be responsible enough to use it after all. -- Mason11987 (T - C - E) 01:45, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Well, the idea is that when we create a bureaucrat, we are keeping in mind they will have this power. I don't think we should give SysOps this, there will be too many of them, changes will be made all over. There will only be a few bureaucrats, so there will not be too much of this going on. Aido2002 01:55, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Seems reasonable, but must all pages go through "process" and what process should there be, is the listing of them on category:articles for deletion enough? Or category:candidates for speedy deletion?  Plenty of those I would have deleted on sight and never given them another thought simply because they aren't helping the wiki at all and they aren't useful at all.  Instead of blanketly limiting a group of people from using a power they have, why not tell them in what situations process is needed, and which it is not. -- Mason11987 (T - C - E) 01:58, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Well, the process, as it is now, requires it to be marked for deletion first. This will allow people o just delete, and if they delete a page that is wanted, a few people just have to say so. This is why the Administrative Committee will help, they could make the final decision should it become hard to decide what is a legitimate article and what isn't. Aido2002 17:31, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Heads Up...
Just to let everyone know, I'm going to decorate the logo for the upcoming holiday season (making sure to acknowledge all faiths, don't worry).Aido2002 02:15, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
 * I Like the snowstorm look.J Andres 02:58, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Sandbox
A link to the sandbox should be present on the main page and also added to Template:Welcome. Mahershallalchashbaz 07:11, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Done and done. -- Mason11987 (T - C - E) 07:16, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Deck the Halls... or the Layout At Least
Another heads up: on Christmas Day/Eve, I will edit the scheme for the holiday. If you celebrate a holiday you want honored, let me know. Aido2002 22:47, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Nationstates Wiki
http://ns.goobergunch.net/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

Just found this. Thought we should all probably have a look to see what they do and try to mimic some of it here. It is a very similar game. J Andres 03:07, 8 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Quote "NSwiki is not a roleplay site. Historical accounts of roleplay activity belong here. Active roleplaying should be done on the forums."


 * heh... -- Mason11987 (T - C - E - CN ) 09:48, 8 December 2006 (UTC)


 * They stole my logo idea... I made a really nice globe-themes logo, which I wanted to premiere on Jan 2, after the holiday themed ones, and with the new year. I'm still going to go along with it, but don't accuse me of copying them. Aido2002 23:08, 8 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Truthfully, I'm not that impressed with it. I posted it figuring we could pick up some tips, but they are just a little more organized. J Andres 03:40, 9 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Neither am I. While they have been here longer (the Wiki) we seem to have things better organized and easier to locate, not to mention ours looks nicer, and more original (they just copied off of WP, the book background, the colors, etc.) Aido2002 23:00, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Tournament Edition
With the release of Tornament Edition later today, is there anything different we should do with their nations? New CAtegory? Since new nations will form every three months should the period that they played be included as well? Or do we figure no one will come in from TE? I will make a wiki article for mine. J Andres 14:07, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Frankly, I don't like TE too much, but sort them into
 * (I used the nowiki tags so it does not sort the Pump into the cat).
 * How about a "pseudo-namespace" for them, "TE:"? This way, if you give your CN nation the same name as your TE nation, :you can make separate articles for each. Aido2002 18:29, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
 * If you didn't know, aido, you can display a cat as a link by putting a ":" after the brackets, such as Category:Cyber Nations Tournament Edition which would be Category:Cyber Nations Tournament Edition.  I think perhaps Category:Tournament Edition Nations would be a good counterpart to the current Category:Nations that we have now.  I'll throw in a new tag in the how to add your nation that'll auto-sort it into whatever category we choose.  I think if they nation is the same, doing disambiguation parentheses would be good, like United States of Wii and United States of Wii (Tournament Edition). -- Mason11987 (T - C - E - CN ) 18:52, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Well, this way we can put them all into one category, then create subcats (If you can, I honestly have never tried to). We are the CN Wiki, not the CN TE Wiki, so we must keep them clearly aweay from the other articles. However, I no longer like the "pseudo-namespace" idea, it is easier to link to a category, I'm not even sure we can link to the other. Aido2002 23:01, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
 * You can link to the other, and I understand what you mean now, how bout... Category:Cyber Nations Tournament Edition having all articles about TE (that are different then regular CN) including the sub-cat category:Tournament Edition nations. I believe you were implying that, so I set it up, and will set up the infobox ASAP. -- Mason11987 (T - C - E - CN ) 03:58, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
 * No, I already set up the subcat Category:Cyber Nations Tournament Edition/Nations. Also, Category:Cyber Nations Tournament Edition/Alliances is waiting to be used. Aido2002((talk)) 20:05, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Alliances are only just starting to form, It will take time, if ever that they come to the WIki. J Andres 20:16, 11 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Well, the category namespace doesn't support subpages, so there isn't really a point to using them. Instead of putting all the categorys as "subpages" of one category, why not give them actual names and put them as subcats. I suggest Category:Tournament Edition nations as a subcat of category:Cyber Nations Tournament Edition and category:Tournament Edition alliances as another subcat. -- Mason11987 (T - C - E - CN ) 21:20, 11 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Nevermind, it does support subpages, I still think it would work better to not have to put Cyber Nations Tournament Edition for all pages related to that, why not just categorize them within that category, instead of doing that and making it a subpage. -- Mason11987 (T - C - E - CN ) 21:21, 11 December 2006 (UTC)


 * It is better organized with subcats. Aido2002((talk)) 20:41, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
 * subcats, not subpages, right? -- Mason11987 (T - C - E - CN ) 14:21, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
 * I meant subcats, yes, but I mistakenly created a subpage instead. Aido2002((talk)) 19:55, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

News
I propose something: a new namespace, "News:". Because we have so many people writing articles and not giving much info, just saying that things are still going on, they could instead write an article on it, and we could have it as news. I asked Angela about it, and she said:


 * "Yes, I can add that as long as the community agree on the idea. The downside is that it makes articles harder to link to, since you need to type page name instead of just page name . The pages also won't show up on the RSS feed for Special:Newpages and they won't add to your article count [Note: That count differs based on who is viewing it]. If everyone here is happy to do this despite the problems, let me know and I'll add it. Angela talk 07:01, 10 December 2006 (UTC)"

So, I think we should go ahead with it. Comments? Aido2002((talk)) 21:11, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

We need to discuss this, the news namespace is an important thing. Any comments? Aido2002((talk)) 20:53, 14 December 2006 (UTC)


 * I don't really see it as that useful. why not just a category of "Current events"?  That seems much simpler and more organized, new namespaces shouldn't be created when the content is relativly the same, just, newer. -- Mason11987 (T - C - E - CN ) 01:05, 15 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Well, this way, we can easily separate news from real articles, and they can be written as news articles, not encyclopedia articles. Plus, we can have separate articles for things that shod be names of both real articles and news articles. For example, if lets say that XYZ is a nation, thus has an encyclopedia article for its name. Then, for whatever reason, a news article should be called XYZ. We have then, article XYZ, and News:XYZ. See what I mean? I feel like that was a bad example.
 * Well, to see an article that shoud be in the "news:" namespace, see A Report on Treason. Aido2002((talk)) 00:29, 16 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Actually, I think your example is an rp history article, and a great example at that. The thing about having that namespace is that stuff is only "news" while it's new, are you going to move things out of that area?  What if there is "news" about NPO, should there be a new NPO article in the news namespace or should it be added to NPO itself?  If it goes in the news namespace then it may never make it into the NPO article, which doesn't seem like the best situation.  Get what I'm saying? -- Mason11987 (T - C - E - CN ) 01:58, 17 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Yes, I think see what you mean. We could put a template on top of the page saying that it is an archived article, if that's what you are saying. Aido2002((talk)) 06:48, 17 December 2006 (UTC)


 * While that's useful, I think a better course of action would be to have a current event tag for regular articles that lets others know that it's in progress. Of course  just a blank page isn't worth putting up but if there is something that can inform.  Plus, it can go on regular pages, like if there is new stuff happening in NPO, someone could throw a current event tag on the article as it undergoes rapid editing, then when it is out of the news, we can remove the tag.  That way archived news is right where it should be, in the history books, right on the page of the subject.  This can work for new things, such as alliance treaties also, and would be easy enough.  To be constructed pages should always be deleted and I think seperating good new content from the knowledge source that we already have isn't the best option, since it'll never get brought over, and the news will just dissapear. -- Mason11987 (T - C - E - CN ) 07:51, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Well, the thing is, I don't know what to do with this. I think it would be better off with the News namespace. Aido2002((talk)) 21:30, 17 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Hmmm, yeah, it doesn't really belong anywhere. I think all articles mentioned in that article should have some mention of the event (which makes sense, if the event is newsworthy), but a I think a category:History section (which already exists) would be good.  As long as things aren't just thrown into the News namespace to die then I suppose it would have it's uses.

new CSS still wacko
I haven't been here in a while, but this new layout seems to have never been fixed. It still loads really slow for me, and the tabs on top of the page (article, discussion, edit, etc.) are really ugly. Has any serious consideration been given to reverting to the old skin? -- Alphacow 14:01, 14 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Well, in my opinion, I think it isn't that bad. The skin could be better, but, as I have said, it is really difficult to edit the style template. I don't think the buttons are ugly. As for it loading slow, that is not a style problem, I think it is a combination of the server speed and how fast your PC goes. It loads at differnet speeds for different times of day for me. Aido2002((talk)) 19:54, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Spam filter
Go here and try to save the version of the article, it won't be allowed due to a spam filter problem, so I restored the text (without that secition of "spam" as it calls it). If someone can figure out what's causing that, it'd be great. -- Mason11987 (T - C - E - CN ) 02:41, 15 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Sorry about that. It was an odd bug cause by a faulty regex. The phrase we were trying to block was "closed due to aids" which a vandal keeps writing all over, but it was causing all pages with "closed" and "aid" in to be blocked. I've removed it now, so you can change the page back to how it was if you prefer. Angela talk 05:04, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

Notice
I am letting everyone know this in advance so I am not accused of "being a tyrant." I was looking through the recent edits, when I saw that User:Key Stroke had put an example on Libertarianism that clearly promoted an agenda. Take a look. As you may know, the vandalism policy defines vandalism as an edit "which does not help the page." Therefore, I blocked him for 24 hours as the policy mandates. If you think that I actually am being "a tyrant" in doing this, then, by all means, unblock him, all I can say is that I always try to make unbiased decisions. Aido2002((talk)) 00:47, 16 December 2006 (UTC)
 * I didn't see the Libertarian entry until after I noticed the block and I did think that you were just banning him. Anyway, we need an official policy on Wiki issues brought into CN wars. J Andres 15:04, 16 December 2006 (UTC)
 * The Libertarianism page was created and I had thought that it fell in the same category as Bible as a page that wasn't at all related to CN, Bible was improved after a discussion on the talk page, and I suggested libertarian should have gotten a delete tag (as it wasn't related to CN) but didn't bother because the discussion was started already and was going through. I think a block was hasty, and I think with someone who is clearly not a "vandal" should have just received a warning.  After all, even wikipedia gives a couple warning messages before it bans people, and they get actual, very frequent, vandals.  But it's over now.  I do think his edit was done in an effort to prove a point and I don't think that's a good way to solve problems (for everyone, of course us three included).  We should just say our points, and discuss them instead of using the editing of a wiki to try to prove our point.  Although this isn't wikipedia, they do have a guideline about it, at WP:Point which is worth reading a little if only to think about. -- Mason11987 (T - C - E - CN ) 01:49, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Most of the time that we ban someone, it is obviously intentional vandalism and it is only punishable by 24 hours the first time. They may not even log on to the computer in 24 hours. Take the ban I made today for a Nordreich vandal. It was teh person's first and only edit, but it was clear vandalism. Our current system isn't subjective at all and this is good. It is clear and precise. J Andres 02:38, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Hmmmm... that's true. Fair enough. 69.182.213.132 04:55, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
 * I'm not saying I don't think it seems a bit hasty, but I was just doing what the policy says to. This seems like a good time to discuss how to re-write the policy. Any suggestions? Aido2002((talk)) 06:46, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

Leaving this Wiki
Due to the manipulative, draconian, and childish approach of the new admins I have chosen to leave this Wiki and not return. Key Stroke 06:12, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Fine, goodbye. Aido2002((talk)) 19:55, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
 * I really don't think we are childish. I wish you had responded to my comments on the ownership page so that we could have fully understood each others opinions.  Every edit I've made was in order to help the wiki be as good as it could be.  The two questionable stances I've had turned out good (Talk:Bible) and fair enough (Random Insanity Alliance, see discussion on my talk page about it).  We were able to come to reasonable, rational agreements that seemed to work out.  Noone had to leave or anything like that.  Since those two pages were your biggest examples of administration wrongdoings (besides the realistically petty dispute about the moving of the ownership page) I really don't see how it was necessary for you to leave.  But that was your decision. -- Mason11987 (T - C - E - CN ) 23:37, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Discouraging editing
From J Andres's post on Vain's talk page
 * Please don't make edits to articles that are tagged as "Frequently the target of bias" without discussing it on the talk page first.

I have to completely disagree with this statement. We have recently been arguing that every page is opened to be edited, now we are saying that articles that are biased shouldn't be edited without "asking" first? Quite unwiki-like. I understand the concern. But I personally believe (and have witnessed on countless occasions) that the best outcome of an article comes from people being bold, and making a change that they think would benefit the article. Of course, in order for this to actually work, we all have to assume good faith in the edits of others. If you have a question about someones edit, feel free to revert it, or change it. The nice thing to do would be to explain your revert on the talk page, and when that happens, the greatest possible outcome occurs. Of course, the edit summary should point to the talk page. That way discussion can decide if that works or not. Of course, if this action isn't taken, the original poster, also acting in good faith, can revert the revert and then he can explain his actions on the talk page. Requiring discussion before edits is exactly what we were suggesting shouldn't happen in the Random Insanity Alliance thing. But this is even worse. Earlier we were saying that everyone should be able to fix an article if it has nonsense in it, and now you are suggesting that potentially (and most likely) useful edits must be discussed first?

The edits you left, J Andres, on Vain's talk page are a great way of working this out. But I don't believe the rollback tool should be used for anything other then clear vandalism. Your revert of his edit should have provided explanation for the revert in the edit summary, and if necessary, point to the talk page where you elaborate. I'd like everyone to look at the next section too, and I hope to keep the discussions separate. This discussion is dealing with the issue that people should never be told they are required to ask first before editing an unlocked article, the next is about blocking. -- Mason11987 (T - C - E - CN ) 07:07, 20 December 2006 (UTC)


 * This is pretty much the problem we had with former user Key Stroke's ideas, we all agreed that this was against the "golden wiki rule" as I love to call it. Aido2002((talk)) 20:40, 20 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Although articles tagged with this way say the same thing on the real wikipedia. J Andres 03:24, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Cyber Nations Wiki:Vandalism
See Cyber Nations Wiki talk:Vandalism for discussion on the vandalism policy. -- Mason11987 (T - C - E - CN ) 07:09, 20 December 2006 (UTC)