Wiki "Work in Progress" Policy

[CadetNewb]

To be very clear, I'm not in a good mood given the topic matter, and am in an even worse mood because my sinuses are clogged, my throat is sore, I feel fatigued, etc (f*k the flu). With that out of the way -

What is our current policy towards articles labeled "Work in Progress"?

Given what's happened in the Asura III update thread, the question of whether or not WIP articles will be edited or immediately put to use/IC-canon before they're submitted has not been answered. Though, yes, Arieg, Wes and I all had a Skype conference some time AFTER the quoted log Arieg had come across had happened, I do not believe any agreement was made. Rather, just the request to consider the consequences of certain actions.

Which, is why I'm making this thread to ask that important question and get a clear answer that's on the record; what is our current policy towards articles labeled "Work in Progress"?

 

[Arieg]

Actually we had our Skype conference before the rule change. If anything it feels like a reaction to justify what happened with Asuras article. If anything to me it means one simply cannot work that way and probably puts another nail in the coffin for these 'claimed' setting elements if one can't even theory build without molestation or the fear of it.

 

[Kyle]

So far as I have seen, any member is allowed to edit a WIP article to fix things such as spelling and grammar. However, anything further than that and the creator of said article should be informed.

 

[Syaoran]

I just read up on what happened and wow, I am surprised, and not in a good way. I don't want to be rude, but this situation as a whole is honestly stupid. It shouldn't even be up for discussion. Yeah everyone can edit the wiki yadda yadda, but really? It's a question as to whether or not someone can edit someone else's work before it's even finished? It's disappointing to a new degree that that would even be considered. Not only does that totally work -against- conversing with people and coming to mutual understandings, but it's just plain -rude-.

It doesn't matter if there are no 'legal' things established to claim that your stuff is protected. @Wes @Zack you are human beings right? You have a conscience correct? Then it should be obvious, if you don't agree with how someone is doing something, you talk to them about it. Going behind someone's back to change it, or flexing power to change it is what politicians do. It doesn't matter if it's 'legal' mean is mean, and something vile is vile.

I don't know how many times I've heard people try to say "This is a community". Well this is the kind of stuff that makes me laugh at that. A community talks and works together. They don't go behind each others' backs just to get what they want, those are enemies and adversaries. I have heard much too often excuses that so and so can do what they want because they have power. That's true you technically can, but when I hear complaints about falling membership, and wanting to expand the site from those very same people all it does is scream hypocrisy.

If you want more people staying around longer, it's about time rules and legality and power stop being more important than -people- and their feelings. Maybe it's time to actually make this a community in practice, and not a gathering of factions held together by the tentative supports that are how interesting the RP is. Because it doesn't matter how cool and interesting SARP is, if people find the community or the leadership more annoying than they find the RP cool, they will leave.

I know a lot of that rant is tangential, but I'd rather not make a whole thread just to rant about how ridiculous some of this stuff is. But really, every FM, Admin, GM, player, they are -people-, not tools, not machines. And while some things like system mechanics need to be held to for fairness sake, people will not stay if they are treated like 'content' and not people.

 

[CadetNewb]

If I recall correctly, it was more than that, and involved a WIP article being taken, having alterations made, then being made canon in that altered state. Naturally, if this is allowed, it's mere fact that there'd be just that much less motivation to actually work on stuff for SARP. Nobody wants to see their own work be taken and changed into something that they never intended it to be, or something that directly goes against their original intent or will.

 

[Amaryllis]

What about creating work in progress pages that are linked within whatever article is being worked on or having WIP sections with spoilers on them with a label at the top for whoever they belong to? Like I could see that making sense if someone doesn't "own" a page like a FM hasn't given someone the ability to decide all on their own what a planet would be like before approving it himself. So if someone wanted to write their own potentially competing work in progress it would have its own section and not interfere with anyone else's.

Ideally I think people should be pming each other and discussing things in setting discussion threads and actually pasting their versions of an article in the threads/pms instead of both sides talking vaguely about what they'd do. Like if someone is going to make a thread about how he wants to change an article why not actually list the changes so far in bullet point form or how they'd actually read so far instead of just a wall of text about your ideas that may lack the tone/specifics of what is actually going to end up on the wiki? We have the ability to spoiler things to make posts more readable/navigable.

 

[CadetNewb]

From what I understand, the WIP article did have its own sub-section. Namely, a player's sandbox page where it was under construction. What was done would be like someone taking your "Akemi's" article while it was still a WIP, changing it to how they liked it but not you, and then making it canon. Though communication would have pretty much prevented this from occurring to begin with, it's happened, and now we need to deal with the consequences. Because of this, I think we deserve to know what the site's policy is regarding anything that's still a Work in Progress.

 

[Wes]

Basically, Arieg was making a planet article for Asura III (which is in my faction). I liked what he was doing and noticed that the only planet page for Asura III was an unapproved one by Gallant. So I took Arieg's and Gallant's WIP articles and moved them into a single planet page. The assumption being that if you put something on the wiki you want it to become canon. So I was actually caught by surprise when he was upset over that because I was putting my seal of approval on his stuff (while also adding my own, in the form of the base). What I finally ended up doing was create a separate canon-only version of Asura III's planet page so that Arieg's concepts are free to be worked on elsewhere without my edits conflicting with his.

Actually we had our Skype conference before the rule change.

What rule change are you referring to? Here are the recent rule changes: https://wiki.stararmy.com/doku.php?id=guide:rules&rev=1448412475&do=diff

what is our current policy towards articles labeled "Work in Progress"?

They are basically treated like any other article on the wiki, which is that they're for the community, and the FM has control over them in they're part of a faction. WIP articles are supposed to be WIP only for the short period (should be less than 3 months) before they become canon. The wiki is not really intended to be a long-term storage for non-canon ideas and concepts, because those types of pages tend to clog up the search results when people are searching for (canon) stuff. If I had a good way of using a single sign-on for the forums and wiki, I'd probably have a second wiki just for development while the main wiki would be clear of WIP stuff. Currently there's no distinction between "sandbox" pages and other pages and sandbox pages are seen as problems because they're not in the "proper" namespace (only certain namespaces are actually allowed on the wiki).

If you guys want to suggest some alternate policies feel free to put them here where we all can discuss them.

 

[Eistheid]

I do not think it would be a good idea for the sandboxes to be touched or removed. Sometimes there just isn't time to complete a concept in a timely manner, and being able to store the ideas or work in progress locally allows for easy management of ideas that are wanted to be added to the setting but aren't possible at the moment. I mean, for example I could theoretically store an idea locally on my PC, but that risks it being forgotten about and then never applied to the setting since I'm not reminded of it when I pay attention to SARP's wiki pages, which in turn might result in some projects never seeing the light of day.

On the subject of WIPs. I think that it would be a good idea to instead of directly edit, or move a WIP article that an FM or you as the SM want to instantly approve, that it might be best to copy it temporarily into its own article. At least until you can ask the person working on the WIP if they are okay with the changes, as sometimes WIPs might have attached ideas that are intended to be added when the writer gets the time to add them. Since we're not always able to get everything done when we want to. Nobody likes it when someone else comes in and changes their work before it is done, it's frustrating and at the very least can muddy a writer's vision of the intended product which could in turn result in lower quality setting additions.

My stance on the matter is that we shouldn't harm the resources that we have that allow people to more efficiently produce content for SARP, nor should we make sudden changes to another user's work without first contacting them. Failing to respect content producers is only going to choke improvements to the setting, which is in turn going to cause the setting to stagnate.

 

[CadetNewb]

@Wes

In hindsight, it was more accurate to say "rule addition". To clarify the timing of it all, we talked on Skype before that was made.

Regarding more important matters though, I believe Eistheid is correct when saying,

Failing to respect content producers is only going to choke improvements to the setting, which is in turn going to cause the setting to stagnate.

I had, during our conversation over Skype, specifically pointed this out regarding the current policy towards WIP articles. It is simple fact that this is the result, regardless of whether or not you understand the reason why. SARP needs more content so it may grow, and quite frankly, this policy discourages new content being made.

As I see it, it is directly harmful to SARP's well being.

At the very least, have contacting the original creator be a requirement, and preferably, have permission be required to edit WIP articles.

 

[Wes]

Hey guys! Here's an update! I talked with CadetNewb and I think the best solution would be to make a WIP zone - a namespace on the wiki where everything is obviously WIP and where no one is allowed to mess with your half-baked articles without asking first. And then when the article is approved, an admin like me will use the page move plugin (that automatically updates backlinks) to move your article to its final place. This will also keep WIPs that don't make it (abandoned, etc) from clogging up the wiki. The namespace will be wip: or sandbox: or something similar.

Sound good?

 

[CadetNewb]

This sounds perfect to me - thanks for the reply Wes. Let me see what others may think and try to get them to reply.

 

[FrostJaeger]

I approve of this motion

 

[Doshii Jun]

Will WIPs still come up during searches?

 

[Wes]

Will WIPs still come up during searches?

The wiki doesn't have a customization option to set what namespaces show up in a search. But if we set the namespace to be viewable only to registered users, they wouldn't show up in the search results for guests...that's the best I think I can do on that front.

 

[CadetNewb]

Do we want WIP's to still come up in a search? Or to members only?

 

[Doshii Jun]

I'm fine with WIPs only showing up with people who are registered. Anyone who joins SARP will register with the wiki too, after all.

Do image hotlink rules and other copyright concerns also apply for WIPs?

 

[CadetNewb]

I suggest they don't - having reference materials on hand for a WIP may come in handy for concept purposes.

 

[Wes]

• Hotlinking is usually bad, but we might come up with approved image hosts like Reddit does.
  • All images on an article would have to be hosted on the wiki before it can be approved.
  • Canon articles can't have hotlinked images in them.
    • Why not? They might expire/disappear/host goes down/disgruntled banned dude can delete them or replace them with scat porn, etc - They got to be where we can protect them. Also most image hosts prohibit us using them as a CDN. And we already have own own CDN, Cloudflare, to save us our image bandwidth!
• Copyrighted stuff (that we don't have rights to) doesn't belong on the wiki. This is to help us avoid getting sued!
  • You can link to these as references, just don't upload them.
• Characters will still be made in the character: directory

 

[Doshii Jun]

That all sounds acceptable to me.