Forum:Thoughts on wiki structure

As many people may have noticed, Pikmin Fanon is without contest the absolute lowest quality member of NIWA. I think we should get it up to at least match the other wikis in content quality. These are just a few things that I think if changed would improve the wiki. Please voice your opinion on this, even if it is negative.

1. One thing that I think needs to be focused on is general wiki rules and guidelines for editing. There are a few major issues I see here. One is the "ownership" of articles. Most people do not like other people editing articles about their ideas, but problems arise when it comes to grammar, clarity, and detail. Also, (I'm guilty of this one) people will create pages that say "_____ is an upcoming _____ made by blank. Wait 'till _____ for more information!" and make stubs on items and tools that would probably be best grouped into one page if more detail is not added. There is also several disagreements made based on things that users should and should not do. As there are no concrete rules or guidelines on these issues, arguments are based on opinions, which makes them hard to be resolved.

2. Another problem that I see is the canon articles. This has been an issue since they were first started, but the issue has grown even greater since Pikmin Fanon joined in the website partnership with Pikipedia and they both joined NIWA. Most of the canon articles' information is literally copied from Pikipedia, and most of these articles have no pictures. Furthermore, these create a large amount of unneeded stubs about canon treasures. A large amount of the canon articles do not contain links and many have poor grammar. Nobody honestly uses them anymore either, because Pikipedia has improved since the articles were copied, and it has links and images. You can tell just how much the canon articles take from the other pages of the wiki by simply pressing the random page button a few times. A large portion of these are canon articles, and you can see that almost all of them lack images and links.

3. Also, another issue that does not seem very encyclopedic to me is the signing of articles. Most fanon articles have the name of their creator written above the article in one of the game boxes, anyways. In my opinion, signatures seem to simply "claim" an article, and I think that we should remove all signatures from articles and replace them with an "author" template. Also, many ideas get "claimed" and users who subsequently visit the wiki are forced to put their articles on other pages, or in small section at the bottom of the pages below the original person's idea, and there are very few disambiguation pages to redirect users. I think that all articles with differences featured between games should be turned into disambiguation pages, including canon articles. Links on disambiguation pages should be in alphabetical order, to make sure that content from games that the creators believe to be the most popular will not overshadow other games by being the first in every list.

4. Another thing that gets to me is the "government". I do not believe that a mock "government" system should be set up, and that certain users should be prioritized above each other. I believe that all users should have an equal say in the running of the wiki. New community projects should not just be set up by a member of the administration and suddenly become a priority, but should be voted on by the community and should be led, not controlled, by a member of the wiki, administrative or not. I see no point in the government pages listed on the sidebar. Creating a "council" of elite users that are the only ones who can work on projects is ridiculous, anyone should be able to help the wiki in its community projects. The "White Room", though it was probably fun to create and imagine, is also ridiculously unneeded. Giving 'crats an imaginary office that they pretend to live in is nothing short of being plain childish. The "official court portal" is stretching it way too far. We never use it, and we honestly can't have a law system if we don't have any "laws" (which we should never have anyways, only policies and guidelines). Again, I'm sure it was fun to make the image and imagine being a judge, but we can easily just use common sense and set up some policies concerning this issue. I can't see shy we have an interwiki relations team portal, it's not like wikis are countries that need to be kept off the brink of nuclear warfare. I would also like to point out that a "portal" is a page that provides helpful links to articles on a wiki that pertain to a certain subject. None of these are truly portals. The polls are a good idea, but should never have anything to do with a mock government, and should just be a fun page linked from the main page, with proper archives. Polls should not be only decided by the 'crats and admins, but proposed and voted on, which is also how featured articles should be chosen. Votes and such should have an alloted time before they expire, rather than just assuming that nobody will vote on them and canceling them (this happens because they are put in obscure forums and topics and are not properly linked to from the main page). Also, Pikmin Fanon does not need a "constitution". As I stated before, wikis should instead have policies and guidelines. Userboxes should not be linked to on the sidebar, and there shouldn't be separated into "sets", and really shouldn't have their own project page, but userbox templates should simply be put in a user box category. Likewise, speech bubbles should just be put into a category, and information on them should be put on the page of said category. Also, the wiki should not have an "official timeline", but different timelines agreed upon by users, each with its own unique name, as the other ones are set up as. Indeed, timelines should probably simply be put together and set up as one big timeline, with the events in the order that they take place as related to the canon games, and different series of fanon games can be sorted by a color code and key. Projects should not be set up only by the administration, but, as I said before, should be voted on as a community and a user, admin or not, should be voted on to lead, not own, each project. Projects should not be just put on the sidebar because a user wants to bring attention to them, but should be put into a category, linked to from the community portal. Likewise, games of the administration should not just be put on the sidebar, but a "games" category should be linked to from there. Also, the "Everything about Pikmin" page, linked from the sidebar as "Pikmin Help, should be deleted. Pikipedia is a great source of info about canon games. In my opinion this kind of stuff should have been taken care of a while ago. Pikipedia never had a "friendly rivalry" with Pikmin Fanon. The canon articles are pretty much just copied over from Pikipedia anyways, and most of the users on Pikipedia really only knew about Pikmin Fanon as "some fan wiki" that they ran across in one or two mentions on talk pages.

5. I will make another paragraph for this issue because my last thought was extremely long. Pikmin Fanon most certainly needs a new user rights system. The fact that only admins can vote on who becomes an admin and only 'crats can vote on who becomes a 'crat gives the administration complete power and does not allow the community majority to decide who will help with the maintainable of the wiki. Because really, admins and 'crats should not be in charge of the wiki. The purpose of sysops and bureaucrats is to make sure that the people in charge of the wiki's maintenance is done only by active users who are taken seriously and respected and trusted by the rest of the community. As such, I believe that there should be a community page for nominations of new admins and 'crats and for demotions of admins and 'crats, and there should be no solid requirements for users who are nominated for each of these positions. In this respect, I believe that Portal Kombat should be demoted to an admin, and then a voting nomination should be put up, to make sure that Portal is helping with wiki maintenance as chosen by the community, and not just because Portal is friends with the other 'crats and is working on a game project with them.

That's all I have for now, and don't be way offended, because I don't dislike any of the users on this wiki, these are simply things that need to be done to improve it.

1. I'll agree it is the lowest, but then again I was surprised we even got our own membership with NIWA instead of just sharing with Pikipedia. Back on Wikia we were pretty good, but that's like comparing urine to poop.

2. It was a tradition to 'claim' an article with your signature, and it's been blindly followed until now. I'll agree it brings up issues, and our editing guidelines in general are piss-poor. We need to work these thing out, but with many of our admins out for various periods of time nothing really gets done in establishing these things. I've been trying to bring to light problems with certain things, and even created a wiki-wide to-do list for problems and goals to be achieved, but it got lost over time.

3. I think that canon pages not usable in any way for fanon things should be gotten rid of. I would suggest keeping the games and character pages as they are, but enemy pages should have all canon content removed, while treasure, 2-P things, and other non-important things should go away. Perhaps we can have a template that links to Pikipedia for any related canon information? I agree that most of the canon pages are almost useless, but they were never the highlights of the wiki and just there because of fervent page copying in the early days. I personally just want to delete the lot of them.

4. I first want to point out that everything you said before Polls in the paragraph was created solely by Peanut, and the Constitution mainly was as well. The Constitution originally was supposed to be the agreed upon rule-list for the wiki I think, and was simply named that because of how it was supposed to be like the U.S Constitution probably. I really don't know, just ask Peanut about it. I started with the polls and ran them, using them to choose the featured thing on the Main Page and maybe some policy stuff. They were originally linked to on the sidebar and on the Main Page, and are still on the sidebar I think. However Peanut took the page and used it for his Govt. thing. I agree with you on Userboxes and Speech Bubbles. Really the original two fanon timelines were made up by Peanut sometimes with permission by the original creator of the game. Most of the other timelines are just user-created fanon series and really should just be left alone. There was a games category on the sidebar at one time, but I don't really remember what happened to it. It's an easy fix to out it back up, and I don't see any one game on the sidebar. I agree with deleting the Everything About Pikmin page.

5. Where did you see that only admins can vote for who becomes and admin? EDIT: I found it, not exactly made me think it was a good idea... As far as I know the community at large chooses who becomes a admin or 'crat. There was a community page for that, but it got taken off the sidebar. It, and any other common sense sidebar edits will be made after this edit. There should be at least some solid requirements, knowing Wiki-code and how to moderate (Oh how ironic!) should probably be the only two though. I'll admit part of the reason Portal is a 'crat is power abuse, so I'll give you your vote(s).

I agree with much of what you wrote, but I have to point out an irony. Before you gained your crat' and admin rights you were just like every other user, but now you point all these things out. Did the power get to your head, VoL?


 * No, the power didn't get to my head. Honestly, its more a responsibility thing, at least the way I see it. Before I was an admin, it wasn't my job to maintain the wiki and make sure it stayed in shape. It was to contribute to the article base in a positive way. Admins have the responsibility of other users and then some, and 'crats even more so. Also, I don't have any 'crat rights, I'm just an admin. You are, of course, my superior in both contributions to the wiki and visible rights and I respect you for that. Yes, my opening to the topic looks like an angry wall of text, but all of these issues have been nagging me and I was thinking that if I didn't bring these up right now, we'd have a heck of a time keeping the wiki organized after Pikmin 3 came out. Pikmin Fanon can become just as good as any of the big wikis if we work on it and improve it.

WARNING:Rebuttal for the sake of having a rebuttal! Ok before when you were a regular user it wasn't your responsibility to maintain the integrity of the wiki, and now that your an admin you want regular users to maintain the integrity of the wiki. END WARNING!!!!!

Moving on now, I thought for sure you were a 'crat. I wasn't trying to use my superiority in rights/contributions against you, or even at all for that matter. Why bring that up? To me at least your opening doesn't look angry, and most of your ideas are easy and quick fixes that I've wanted to do for a long time, but I haven't been on much to do them. Knowing Nintendo we'll probably get a good bit of time before Pikmin 3 is released, but hopefully it will be shown off soon.


 *  WARNING:Rebuttal for the sake of having a rebuttal against a rebuttal for the sake of having a rebuttal. 
 * No, as a regular user my responsibility was "to contribute to the article base in a positive way", and that is still the responsibility of regular users. As an admin, my responsibility is to "maintain the wiki and make sure it stay[s] in shape", and, I (along with the other admins) still have the responsibility to "to contribute to the article base in a positive way". I hope that makes more sense and clarifies a little more
 *  END WARNING 

Another thought
Enemy articles as they are structured now have either canon notes or info from one game on the top part and then the rest of the games on the bottom part. I have an idea on a different way to structure them:

Example

If canon: ''This enemy appears in one of the canonical games. Visit Pikipedia's article on pikipedia: for more canonical information.'' (Note: Template:Real should be changed to this and moved to Template:Canon, and Template:NoReal should just be removed, since this is a fanon wiki; I'm not sure that game header templates would work with this layout, maybe they should just be kept to the game specific pages).

Note: A short blurb, maybe a sentence or two, maybe nothing, should go here, telling about the enemy.

Games
This creature appears in the following fanon games:


 * Game 1
 * Game 2
 * Game 3
 * Game 4

Areas

 * Game 1: Temple of Tombs, Sunny Spring
 * Game 2: None
 * Game 3: Sweltering Desert, Forsaken Valley
 * Game 4: Mountain of Worry, Edible Paradise, Isle of Danger

Caves

 * Game 1: Dweevil Dwelling, Cave of Cables, Perilous Pit
 * Game 2: Cavern of Terror, Sunny Abyss
 * Game 3: Subterranean Garden, Fiery Grotto
 * Game 4: Abandoned Chasm

Description
Descriptions of the creature as it appears in each game are listed below.


 * Game 1: The creature is a large, brown, hairy, bulblax with several eyes.
 * Games 2 and 3: This enemy looks like the Emperor Bulblax from Pikmin 2, but it has many eyes, a black tongue, yellow skin, and it has a more vivid and less mossy shell.
 * Game 4: This creature looks like a Red Bulborb from Pikmin 2 but with a brown tipped nose, a blue back with yellow spots, and a whole lot of eyes.

Behavior
The behavior of the enemy and how to deal with it in each game.


 * Game 1: Upon entering an area or sublevel with this creature in it, it will immediately start walking towards your active captain. Try to go to an area where it cannot reach you if you discover that there is one of these creatures at the place you are in. It can hop and squish you pikmin, so swarming is not a good idea here. If pikmin are thrown on its face it will lick them off periodically, so throwing them on its hairy back is the only plausible option.


 * Games 2 and 3: This creature acts mostly like an Emperor Bulblax from Pikmin 2, but it is found sleeping instead of underground, and is woken when approached. It will not call for others of its kind, unlike the aforementioned Emperor Bulbax, but it has two new abilities: it can bring its eyes down to smack the pikmin on its face, and when it brings its tongue out it will sweep it back and forth.


 * Game 4: This creature acts like an Orange Bulborb from Pikmin 2, but captains have to keep much farther away to prevent it from waking up, as at least three of its eyes are open at any given time.

Strategy to Defeat

 * Game 1: I'm tired, so I won't make up a paragraph on how to kill the pretend enemy here.
 * Games 2 and 3: Ditto.
 * Game 4: Double Ditto.

Categories go here.

Comments on this idea
I agree with all part of this.

Well this all seems align! I agree that a 'mock' government is unnecessary, but humans seek legitimacy, and that seems legit. But I would agree to take it down. (Translation: I was bored. Take it down.) Anyways, I feel as If all of these things are right, and I am gradually slipping away from this site. Possibly a new crat' would help us. Sir Pikmin is not the most active user (But helps out a lot) and I have taken breaks. So, I am not very in touch with the problems.


 * Okay, I'll take it down right now.

If the creature looks and acts so different in the different games, they really should be different articles, but that's not quite the point here. I think there should be less segmentation between games, even though I do recognize that there will be differences between creatures, even more so in the case where one is a RTS like the main series and an other is a turn-based RPG. --Yoshord 00:54, 9 February 2011 (EST)


 * Making them separate articles is also an option, but I think it would create a large amount of stubs, many of them low quality, and create a need for lots of disambiguation pages. In my opinion, this would be not be the better option. Of course, if it turns out that everyone thinks that making them separate articles would be better, I'll go along with it.


 * The problem with not segmenting between games is that one version would get the "spotlight" of the article, while other versions would just be small descriptions telling how the enemy is different from the "spotlight" version (which is what is happening right now). Simply listing common information on top, with differences below, would make quite a mess as new versions were created or existing ones were changed, and it would be harder for a reader to gain information from the article, because info on versions would be split between the common info section and the differences section. And then their would still be a fair amount of segmentation. :

If you go to wikipedia, Batik and Batik have different pages. Even on Bulbapedia, one of those NIWA wikis, Coin and Coin have different pages. Completely different concepts that have nothing to do with each other are on different pages on other wikis. Why would we need concepts that, quote, "appear again in Pikmin: Connection of the Worlds, but are completely different than in Pikmin: Gold/Silver/Bronze" on the same page? It would not help a reader to have to juggle a few dozen completely different creatures in memory when reading about them, like it would be senseless to try to make a reader juggle between reading about a dyeing technique and a computer program by putting both in the same article.

Granted, there are also pages that should not be separated but are: none of the Cyan Pikmin subtypes should be separate pages, and Poisonous Blowhog and PSE/Poisonous_Blowhog should be merged. The problem what constitutes as different enough to merit separate pages. --Yoshord 19:48, 1 March 2011 (EST)

And Another Thought
We need to add licensing templates to all of the images.

About the Pages
I personally think that every enemy that appears in multiple games (canon or not) should have this format as well. If we just have the canon articles improved but ignore the fanon pages the it's not really improving the wiki, right? Besides, some of the pages really need improving, like the pages with the Low Quality template/Stub template. If we improve lots and lots of pages then we'll definitely move up a rank or two in NIWA. Let's make a goal: improve at least 300 low/medium quality articles then decide of more need to be improved. This is merely a thought, don't take it too seriously. PikminFanatic23 9:22 AM, 11 March 2011 (Pacific Time)


 * The new layout is actually for all enemies, sorry if that was confusing. Also, that sounds like a good goal, we should see what others have to say about it.


 * Yeah, I kinda read over this page but not entirely, so thanks for pointing that out.


 * I know, right? 300 pages out of the existing 1,096 pages is so close to 1/3 of all the aforementioned pages. So let's try to work to that goal!! PikminFanatic23 6:53 PM (Pacific Time), March 11 2011


 * I agree, it's a good idea. I'll add it to the SiteNotice, so no one can miss it.


 * Aside from that, I think we should start with the Stubs and Low Quality Articles. The Medium Quality ones should be fine for now.

Yeah. Still, when I first made this section, a problem arises: The part where I said: "Let's make a goal: improve at least 300 low/medium quality articles then decide of more need to be improved.". That was a little bit after I woke up, so I was still a bit "out of it". Now, when I look at it, I'm rather puzzled... Yet again, I've finally decided: Improve not only enemy pages, but ANY pages that need to be improved. Sorry about the mix-up. PikminFanatic23 9:32 PM (Pacific Time), March 11 2011


 * Fixed.

Sorry about missing that conversation. I believe this to be a good idea, but what would the format for the other pages be?


 * I'm not quite sure what you mean there, but right now only enemy and Pikmin pages are being changed to the new style.

Well, as Volatile said above, we're only going to work on the enemy pages. Still, I would like to change poor spelling/grammar into better forms so everyone understands it. I've seen several games and their creators (well, in my opinion at least) just don't seem to care about the spelling at all. They don't even bother with proper nouns. As we all know, the Pikmin is a proper noun so I would like to see some words corrected into proper nouns. Don't think I'll not help; I will. I just know we'll be able to do this! PikminFanatic23 3:05 PM (Pacific Time), March 12 2011

Oh jeepers creepers! I went and looked at the Low Quality, Medium Quality, and Stub Categories, and found out there's only 59! Can you believe it?!