Ok this forum is here so I can get some feedback about the blog feature that Wikia offers. Recently, the amount of spamming on blogs has come to annoy me, and I'm sure I'm not the only one. I've more than once thought about disabling the blog system, and I'm still thinking about it more and more. Therefore I'd like some feedback on what people think about it, our own system here, or lack thereof, and their opinions overall.
We are a wiki about the ME universe and therefore we have to be about content first, not content second. Socializing is great, but not when it comes at the expense of content. Lately, we seem to be getting those switched, and I'm sure that I'm not the only one that has been annoyed by that. Content needs to come first, not socializing. Sure, making friends is great and all, but not at the expense of the mainspace of the wiki.
Some basic rules here:
- No insulting users for what they say. It is a free forum and all thoughts and opinions are welcome. Don't be afraid of posting your opinion either way.
- No matter what your opinion on it is, I'd like to hear that.
- If you wish to propose a system for monitoring or regulating the blog system, then please share it.
- Use common sense when posting. There seems to be more than a few instances of people forgetting that lately.
Finally, let me say that this is in no way a proposal or that something may or may not come of this. It is nothing more than a tool for me, and possibly other admins to get a grip on the situation.
Thank you all in advance. Lancer1289 (talk) 17:52, September 10, 2012 (UTC)
- I like the system how it is, and while there may be some problems, I think it should stay.--Legionwrex (talk) 17:59, September 10, 2012 (UTC)
- I agree with, Legion. Sure it has it's problems, but overall I like it. Bluegear93 (talk) 18:25, September 10, 2012 (UTC)
- Yeah, the fundamentals are fine, but the current state of affairs really sucks. --Mr. Mittens (talk) 18:29, September 10, 2012 (UTC)
- I like the system how it is, and while there may be some problems, I think it should stay.--Legionwrex (talk) 17:59, September 10, 2012 (UTC)
the spam is fine most of the time (even amusing when content is not downright idiotic) but when IP contributors or one-shot editors take more time to correct simple mistakes / add/revise valid mainspace content than the lot of named accounts here i think that basically sums up the current situation. T̴̴͕̲̞̳̖̼̱͒͛̎͒ͫ̃ͧeͩ̈̽̈҉͓̝̰̼̦̫̤̀͠m̫̪̪̯̻͎̫̅̇̓̇͌̚p̸̙̝̓̓͌ͨ͆ͣͥ̂̕o͒̽͐̽͏̞̬̻͕͔͕͚̰͍͠͞ṙ̢̞͚͈̹̰ͨ̓ͭ̈́̌ạ̢̧̪̹̺̺̣̹̲͂͆̏ͪͨ͒ͭř̹͈͜͠y̷͍̻̜̹̼̾̽̈́e̵̹̼̟̦͚͐̈́͌͘d͉̲̣̻͉̱͗̅ḭ̷̻̆͋̆̓̔͝t̨͍̦̫̗͂̅̍̋̆ͩ͝ộ̫̟̬̳̝̲̾ͫ̒̿ͮ̑̚rͯ̎ͨͭ̄̿̽͛҉̠̫̱̠̘̘̲́ͅ7̩̻ͤͩͨ͝͡8̜̣̙͇̻ͨ͛͛̆͒̆̽̒͐͜͡ ͥ̍̉̃̇ͥ̓ͨ͏̕҉̥̹͓̗̤̠̖̤ (talk) 18:44, September 10, 2012 (UTC)
- Is this because I have more blog edits than actual contributions?--TW6464 (talk) 19:42, September 10, 2012 (UTC)
I also feel that the sheer number of blogs and blog updates distract from the actual wiki content, but fortunatelly you can exclude them from the Recent Changes. I always thought that concrete theories or advanced gameplay questions are better posted in a forum, in the official Bioware forums for example (even if it still uses one of the worst forum softwares ever), where a much wider audience exists who can answer and partake in the discussion. Given even before there were blogs on a wiki some users could spam each other's talk pages, which is a similar annoyance, but that only happend in rare cases. From my point of view a wiki is no chat room but with Wikia's everlasting attempt to turn this into facebook I might be wrong. --ShardofTruth (talk) 11:32, September 11, 2012 (UTC)
- That is a good point. I thank everyone for their opinions, and it seems like just enforcing the fact we are a content based wiki, not a social wiki seems to be the way to go. Any further comments are of course welcome. Lancer1289 (talk) 14:01, September 11, 2012 (UTC)
Even though there has been a large number of blogs by a particular few individuals, I don't think there really needs to be a new policy. Sure, a wiki should be content first and socializing 2nd but that doesn't mean that people who mainly wish to socialize should be turned down. Personally, I prefer to socialize due to a number of reasons (i.e. school-work, my time is limited, not much to contribute that other users can do better, and I'm not really that good of an editor). I'm more of a browser that likes to discuss the various game elements than an actual contributor but I'll attempt to fix the various grammar mistake I come across or report the occasional vandal. I'm sure quite a few other editors are like that too. IMO as long as they don't over-step their boundaries it should be perfectly fine if they just want to socialize. Aleksandr the Great (talk) 14:50, September 11, 2012 (UTC)
- I'm not that great of an editor either, so that's why I socialize. Aleksandr's right, there's no need for a new policy TW6464 (talk) 14:58, September 11, 2012 (UTC)
Let's just say I wouldn't oppose a policy that punishes users who create gratuitous amount of blog/forum related spam. --Mr. Mittens (talk) 14:53, September 11, 2012 (UTC)
- that's a bit much, don't ya think? TW6464 (talk) 14:55, September 11, 2012 (UTC)
- No, it's really not. --Mr. Mittens (talk) 14:58, September 11, 2012 (UTC)
- punishing people for being too social? Seems like a bit much to me. TW6464 (talk) 15:01, September 11, 2012 (UTC)
- You of all people should understand my motivations behind this. I would recommend dropping this before you derail yet another conversation. We all know what's going on here. --Mr. Mittens (talk) 15:08, September 11, 2012 (UTC)
- I'm fine with a few limits on the amount of blogs during a certain time period. No offense TW6464 but a user really shouldn't create more than one blog every couple of weeks unless there is a huge influx of important game news. Aleksandr the Great (talk) 15:13, September 11, 2012 (UTC)
- You of all people should understand my motivations behind this. I would recommend dropping this before you derail yet another conversation. We all know what's going on here. --Mr. Mittens (talk) 15:08, September 11, 2012 (UTC)
- punishing people for being too social? Seems like a bit much to me. TW6464 (talk) 15:01, September 11, 2012 (UTC)
- No, it's really not. --Mr. Mittens (talk) 14:58, September 11, 2012 (UTC)
"Spamming"? Huh? Someone's been advertising Viagra and Ro11exxxx? I somehow missed that. I did notice quite a couple of people discussing things but I fail to see how this is wrong. If the amount of blog comments on the Recent Activity page is a problem, I believe some kind of filter, preferably such as every user could turn on or off according to their preferences, might be a solution but I admit right away that I have no idea if this is possible or not. Or, would it be possible to redirect forum/blog comments to their own special recent activity page, to keep socialising and editing separate, each to their own? IMHO, disabling blogs will only lead to moving discussions to the forums, with exactly the same effect of, er, "spamming" because people simply want to talk, always have, always will. Besides, I'd very much like to know the official Wikia stance on the use of blogs and if disabling blogs is even within your admin rights. --Ygrain (talk) 17:10, September 11, 2012 (UTC)
- I would say that repeatedly advertising a blog post you made on other people's blogs would constitute spam. --Mr. Mittens (talk) 17:25, September 11, 2012 (UTC)
- You know..... You're right Mr.Mittens, It does constitute as spamming. I apologize to people whose blogs I have repeatedly advertised my blogs on. TW6464 (talk) 17:28, September 11, 2012 (UTC)
- I've seen people do that and no-one called them out on it (where I could see), so I figured it was OK if it was topic-related. I won't do that again, no problem, you could tell me right away. --Ygrain (talk) 17:33, September 11, 2012 (UTC)
- The issue was that he advertised the blog across four or five others, and it was simply a link to a fan concept on the BSN. For instance, when his Halo blog got so popular that he decided he didn't like it anymore, he told people to go comment there instead. Completely irrelevant to the topic of Master Chief vs Shepard. --Mr. Mittens (talk) 17:50, September 11, 2012 (UTC)
Flip what the heck has been happening while I’ve not been on to make Lancer consider getting rid of blogs. Well first of all, like most of the others I like the way our current system is. That said I think it would be a good idea to consider what Ygrain mentioned and come up with a sort of filter. Besides getting rid of blogs would be the worst idea for this wiki since it continually gets complaints about the language policy and some other things, could you imagine what those people would do if we got rid of blogs. Spam and insults on forum and talk pages, people likely vandalising the place. We had enough problems when they were complaining about the language policy. --JediSpectre117 (talk) 18:56, September 11, 2012 (UTC)