User:Wormulon/The 2014 kick everyone up the backside blog

Hello! A good title always gets clicked on.

We are almost into the fourth month of 2014, we can't exactly call the year all that new any-more, but anyhow, there are some fresh projects and changes many of us are agreeing are a good idea for the wiki as a whole. Some of the changes will need discussion, and the projects seem rather daunting, so hence the title (backside kicking includes my own).

Important topics and guidelines
Ghelae has suggested a fantastic idea (as always from our resident physicist and martian expert): rewrite the important topics pages to have only SporeWikiverse content and lore (cleaning it up as well), while keeping relevant real world topics to presumably user sub-pages.

And the guidelines in my opinion, look ugly. They should not only include what to do to not make a bad starter fiction, they should also include expert tips in making pages look nice, original and to make the new fiction well involved.

Finally, who remembers Spore Create! Wiki? We used to have great Spore guidelines on there, but I've always found it odd we don't here! It might be too late now, Spore's community is (as they say) less vibrant, but it might make our wiki more complete.

History
While this could go in the section above, I think we need to make an emphasis of this. While older users here have a good chronology of wikiverse events, it is not easy for the newer users to access the lore and history of the wiki. You know something is wrong with our organisation and presentation when someone say's "The War of Ages, what is that?!", or "I'm surprised at how great that user's fiction is [after all this time assuming it to be bad]."

I think this is a project we can all get involved with, users new and old (for the reasons below). If we all added what we are confident about adding, then it isn't such a great burden to anyone.

Some fixes?
I've noticed SporeWiki's Twitter feed is broken. It might have something to do with Wikia no longer supporting IRC? I don't know.

The Taxonomy Project is still broken to my knowledge. It might be possible to get Wikia to have a look?

The main namespace
No, the main namespace* is not second-class to the wiki. Pages like Glitches are quite frankly an abomination in categorisation, grammar, and PPOV.

* Remember many users come here not because they have heard about the mighty and legendary SporeWikiverse, but because Spore and/or wiki's interest them. A bad looking wiki is much less likely to attract new users or get Wikia to showcase us.

The Sporewikipedia
Since the Sporepedia is starting to go offline, it has been suggested that a wiki database might create a new influx of users. And like the Sporepedia of the good old days, it could be moderated.

Is this a good idea? Would it be one big database, or linked user subpages? Could it even be a separate wiki?

It probably shouldn't have the name "Sporepedia" anywhere in it. Just in case we get in trouble.

Community restructuring
Some of us, me included, have had many issues and anxieties brought to mind by users new and old to the wiki. Common issues I am told about recently include: I'll add more on request, anonymously.
 * "My fiction is ignored on IRC, on purpose or otherwise", or "That group is a very tight group of friends that I can't engage with", or "My fiction is crowded out by more popular, established fiction."
 * "My contributions are ignored and I am the only one doing x and/or y", or "I feel as though only a few of us are expected to do any projects on the wiki, everything is left to us, I don't like this negative popularity."
 * "I lack the confidence to engage in community projects or the fiction universe."
 * "Some users don't assume enough good faith, my intention was not cause this or that response."
 * "Why am I being told off for my opinion on IRC?", or "I feel as though people hate me because the chat goes quiet or I am ignored completely."
 * "There is a lack of coordination in the roleplay we just had", or "That roleplay is too long to read and I find it hard to be involved", or "I planned a workload with user which he agreed to weeks ago, and he still hasn't bothered. I am waiting."
 * "Fantastic fiction ideas I/some of us come up with only receive negative reception", or "I did all this work, and people are only nitpicking at it."

So what is exactly going wrong here? Many of us all have different opinions and perspectives on these issues, many more than I can remember. What I think is happening is that these are objective problems, but we are having different subjective views of them - this creates a new issue where a user feels like they are feeling these problems alone, but in fact, everyone is but in a different way. Now I think there is a lot of anxiety on the wiki, the recent and unfortunate argument was an emotional overspill. But now it is time to look at think rationally to construct solutions that we can all benefit from and indeed feel a whole lot better.

For example, I have observed that sometimes the newer users, even 1-2 years down the line, still look up to the older users, and expect them to answer questions or do the work. They perceive themselves as less-able, even though they are fully capable of learning or doing such projects themselves. This simply isn't good wiki methodology, it makes the more mature users over-tasked, and it gives them a bad reputation eventually (seeming over-popular or elitist). And this causes problems to newer users, less confident to voice their problems or get new fiction recognised.

Look at all these issues above, I think a lot of it is down to bad (or mis-) communication and a lack of confidence, and maybe, not encouraging the networking of fiction. "I planned a workload with user which he agreed to weeks ago, and he still hasn't bothered" - Maybe that user isn't lazy, he just took on too much to handle because he couldn't say "No", or "That is too much"; "Some users don't assume enough good faith, my intention was not cause this or that response" - maybe both users are at fault? One didn't ask permission from another user to do whatever he did which could have prevented the dispute in the first place, and the other felt that it was a personal attack?

To build up confidence, I think we need to restructure how everyone operates in big collaborations and projects. New users for example can be encouraged to learn how to fix or make templates themselves (the only way coding can actually be learned btw, and a big confidence boost). Networking new fiction to be involved with bigger collabs is also essential, perhaps it shouldn't matter if that fiction wasn't there from the start? It could still be involved down the line! For example, me getting Drom's Naakjian Confederation involved with the Cooperative's goal to reach other galaxies, thus instantly getting it involved with the Gigaquadrant Conflicts. hen I do fiction these days, I try my best to combine plots and stories, I find them much easier to organise and plan. This is why I suggest everyone pitches in what they are confident in contributing to when doing big projects like summarising the entire history of the SporeWikiverse.

Should we value trust on the wiki? I have never considered trust foundational to wiki editing. I expect contributing users to respect the rules and be civil, but I wouldn't call that trust because any mistake or vandalism can be undone so easily. But one other issue that has been brought to me a few times is the feeling that trust is broken. Maybe trust is something that can be a goal of building up confidence, dunno. But maybe it shouldn't be assumed, because in one case, it was a cause of confusion.

Settling disputes
We are pretty good at at settling them now, and I really don't need to nanny everyone here who is smart and pretty mature (usually). But yes, I will restate what has been said before:
 * Admins aren't there to settle arguments and choose a victor, unless it causes disruption like an edit war or IRC flame-war, in which all parties involved get punished.
 * If it really needs to continue, settle in privately, unless one user no longer wants to argue. Then it is harassment if it doesn't stop.
 * It might be best to let the emotions die down and ignore each other for a while.

IRC, and presenting new content
I'm pretty sure myself that nobody really means to ignore your latest work, but everybody at some point feels this, and it really isn't pleasant to waste your time. Some of us don't actually care, some only want to present the work to a small number of friends, and others want everyone's opinion and constructive criticism. For me it is all three depending on my mood.

People however shouldn't be forced into doing something they don't want to do. If you don't want to comment on someone's fiction then don't. But if you do usually comment on at least some work, then why not everyone-else's?  And I think that commenting on only a few people's fiction really is very non-constructive to the wiki.

IRC, and the innuendo
Now I'll make this clear: I'm not a fan of the PC brigade or nanny state. I like a good joke as much as the rest of you, but I'm not the only one who is quite frankly bored with 60% or more of IRC conversation being just innuendo, is it really about the joke or just mindless meme replication? It has been suggested that these types of conversations can go somewhere else other than #sporewiki, but at the same time, we run the risk of breaking apart the chat-room (thus not solving the friendship circle problem at all) and simply banning any topics people don't like (and I like to talk about science sometimes, which I know not everyone likes).

So instead I'll suggest these two points:
 * Don't aim it at people if they don't want it. I've seen this happen myself and it certainly HAS upset individuals.  In fact, this one the admins can enforce because after-all, civility is an official rule.
 * Don't forget other people use the chat. If they want to share content, then at least stop and look, and if you can think of something to say, do so.