Forum:Wiki Improvement

Forums: Index > The Realm of Sleep > Wiki Improvement

Guardian Soul Talk. — Don't I even warrant a hello? It's such a shame. The Organization used to be the rope that bound us together. - 03:31, October 6, 2009 (UTC) Alright, so I think it's time that this wiki makes some changes. I've been snooping around Halopedia and I think that it's in great shape, so I'm going to be borrowing some ideas from that wiki which can be used to improve our own. 1. Side-Bar First of all, their side-bar has influenced me with the idea to change ours. The following categories can be included: Games (Kingdom Hearts, Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories, Kingdom Hearts II, Kingdom Hearts coded, Kingdom Hearts 358/2 *Days, Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep) The Universe (Main Characters, Organization XIII, Worlds) Gameplay (Items, Magic, Limits, Drives, Summons, Gummi Ship, Cards, Weapons) Literature (Novels, Manga, Strategy Guide) Merchandise (Figures, Music, Clothing) Community (Staff, Users) Help (Manual of Style, Policies, Tutorial) Fun (Userbox, Forums, IRC) Media (Images, Music) Related Sites (List of affiliates.) The text can also be made smaller. 2. Main Page Now, since a lot of the information currently on the main page will be included in the sidebar, we can take it away from the main page to make more room. This means we remove the Navigation and Helping Out boards, as they'll no longer be necessary. Using Halopedia as a reference, we can display the main games, keep the featured article, keep the random quotes, keep Jiminy's Journal, and keep the featured media. Clean-up of the month is sort of unecessary, so I don't know if we want to keep that or not. We can make the boxes more appealing with more room, and add more to the front page based on your ideas. Most importantly, we need a box with a great introductory paragraph at the top of the page. In the introduction, we can include Helping Out, Help, the Manual of Style, staff, and the Sandbox, and explain what the wiki is about. Below that we can include various links to important places. 3. Page Protection On to the next issue, I think that we need to protect important pages from unregistered users. That includes the following: Sora Riku Kairi Roxas Larxene Marluxia Luxord Demyx Axel Saïx Zexion Lexaeus Vexen Xaldin Xigbar Xemnas Also, all of the Days articles should be protected from unregistered users until we get everything sorted out. Perhaps Birth by Sleep articles as well? To reduce speculation. After that, many, many articles need to be improved content-wise. There are tons of articles that don't follow the manual of style and are extremely messy. Perhaps some of us should take a few articles every week and plan on improving them. We'll need better articles in order to continue the featured articles. 4. Other Other things that could help improve the wiki, are the following: Get a new kind of infobox that's smaller and takes up less space. The game icons are good for now, but they cover the notice. Unless we want to just stop using notices, we're going to have to figure out how to fix the issue properly. I plan on scanning the enemy infoboxes from my guides, and we can include small links to those images as references within the templates, perhaps at the bottom. Use references for everything necessary/possible. Put the Days articles under a new category like "articles under construction" instead of "articles in need of improvement". This way, only non-Days articles will appears under "articles in need of improvement." Less stress on Kryten. The journal entries are way too long and messy, and we need to put them into a box of some sort. After all of the above, we need to revise the rules once more. That's all I can think of for now. Of course, this is a group decision, and you can all add your own ideas, as well as express your thoughts on my ideas. No changes will be made without all of this being discussed first.

1. Side-Bar Discussion

I think we could add KHWiki:Roxas's Diary to the Community tab since it's about the wiki and other KH info. We should keep the featured articles somewhere like under "Fun" or "Media". Maybe we should just have a Characters category and add Worlds to gameplay. These are just some of my thoughts. - HeartOfOblivion 03:47, October 6, 2009 (UTC)

For the side-bar I propose putting the Forums under Community, they are indeed for fun but most of the discussions are for the wiki's improvement, unlike other wikis where the forums are mainly used for fan and entertainment purposes. Unless there is a way to split "The World that Never Was" under community and "Twilight Town Library" under Fun. Also, for the "Users" part under community, I'm guessing that'll be the community list; some people have expressed their dislike for some people getting their place in the list just for edits in talk pages and blogs. Is there a way to filter the community list so it only takes in consideration main space/files/categories/other useful edits? --—YerMom _{is feeling jolly} 03:49, October 6, 2009 (UTC)

Our forums are already under the community section, if I'm not mistaken. Featured articles/media best go under like, say, Top Content, because it's the top for each month, isn't it ?

Lemme structure it first.

• KHW
• Top Content
  • Featured Articles
  • Featured Media
  • Most popular
  • Most visited
  • Highest ratings
  • Newly changed
• Community
  • Featured Users
  • Community Portal
  • Forums (TWTNW)
• Gameplay
  • Characters
  • Worlds (and then, try adding on to this list ?)

Now we need a section for the rest of the gameplay, the main categories, the Userpage stuff and the project pages (those with the KHW mainspace). TNÉ _{En avant Bravo !} 03:51, October 6, 2009 (UTC)

What i understood from GS was to actually revamp the side bar, which means taking away the "Top Content" thing and replace it for something like they have in Halopedia. I don't think we need Featured Articles and Featured Media in the side bar since they will be part of the main page as boxes and the Most popular and most visited parts... well I think no one looks at those really XD --—YerMom _{is feeling jolly} 03:57, October 6, 2009 (UTC)

Hm. Tricky one indeed. But one thing's for sure : we'll be putting Stubs/Wanted Articles in the sidebar, which means we'll finally be taking that notice off from the main page. Say, once we've come up with a unanimous decision for the main page, shall we structure it ? TNÉ _{En avant Bravo !} 04:00, October 6, 2009 (UTC)

I agree that we need to get a filter for the Community List, because I know that User such as Xiggie and myself actually do pay close attention to it. however, before it, perhaps we could have an exptending bar that links to the Staff page, and extends to have the names of all the active staff. Also, I've noticed that we've been having problems with the Featured Media lately becuase that few Users put their votes in to make a storng enough non-tied decision! Perhaps we could advertise this on the main page or the side-bars?

@TNE: Perhaps move content between rows and add lots of new boxes of interesting joyous content. See my message in the corresponding section. --DoorToNothing 23:05, October 6, 2009 (UTC)

I think I'll just put something together now, and we can edit it based on what you guys want. Guardian Soul 20:25, October 7, 2009 (UTC)

I think that we should have Games which leads to Main Games and then the Others, rather than having the two on the top. Also, isn't the music Merchandise? I thought so... Apart from those two, I think it looks great :D - Iceboy^Svalur! 07:58, October 8, 2009 (UTC)

KrytenKoro - Pinocchio with his nose attached to the trigger of a rifle, which points at his face as he says, "I want to live!" TALK - ::Music is within the games, as well, so it's semi-canonical, as opposed to the non-canonical toys and merch. I'm kind of loathe to categorize Mobile as something completely separate, as it is part of the canonical series. Then again, it's not part of the canon, so there's that. I agree with Xiggie that the two games containers should be together, though. Sleights, Techs, and Reaction Commands should be added to game elements; or weapons goes into items, summons goes into magic, and the three former ones go into abilities (or special abilities). We should probably also have something for "Limits".

2. Main Page Discussion

Okay, so any idea how we're gonna restructure the main page ? TNÉ _{En avant Bravo !} 03:34, October 6, 2009 (UTC)

Well, since we'll be removing the notice and cleanup of the month, why not add some stuff? From what I've been digging up on various talk pages (mainly the one for the main page), a common suggestion is something like the Dragon's Neck Colosseum from the Final Fantasy Wiki over here. As for a personal suggestion from me, TRIVIA. check out the bottom-right corner of the FFWiki's main page, and templates involved. I think that we should DEFINITELY set that up here. Also, I think that we should revise the links that we have in our Wiki-gaming box; some of them are games that seem like they've never been heard of. Any suggestions for gaming wikis to replace them? --DoorToNothing 23:14, October 6, 2009 (UTC)

I like the Trivia idea...we seem rather fond of it around here, in spite of some people's best efforts. ^_^ As a bonus, it might get those bits and pieces off of the article pages. BebopKate 01:00, October 7, 2009 (UTC)

Well, some only (don't you think ?), unless we had a random DID YOU KNOW section where we can take out all the trivia, and put it as how it was done in Template:Random Quote, and yeah. TNÉ _{En avant Bravo !} 01:22, October 7, 2009 (UTC)

Yes, just like that; that's how it's done on FFWiki. --DoorToNothing 01:33, October 7, 2009 (UTC)

But that'll mean that we have to put in the subject in question (Axel, Sora, Mickey Mouse etc.) - and sometimes, there are pieces that just don't fit in. Think we should begin that now ? I mean, I wouldn't mind coming up with the template first before removing all the trivia bits. TNÉ _{En avant Bravo !} 02:27, October 7, 2009 (UTC)

Ok, look at Trivia on the FFWiki; most of doesn't fit into a certain article, or is used when the Trivia section is filled. We don't need to acutually move trivia into this box, lest if you think it would be a good idea. --DoorToNothing 02:29, October 7, 2009 (UTC)

We see how people react :

<poll> Which would be a better move ? Get those darned trivia bits out of the pages ! Keep them, but limit them to seven, as we always do. </poll>

Regardless of which one people choose, we can move all the trivia bits into one box and use the "option" function. How many trivia bits do we display in that box anyway ? TNÉ _{En avant Bravo !} 02:46, October 7, 2009 (UTC)

Four or five. And actually, the FFWiki uses unique trivia that I don't think comes from the articles. Perhaps we can just... think it up? --DoorToNothing 02:58, October 7, 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure. If we can, that's good. But you know, it's always better to put it in because ultimately, if we take out the two more extra trivia bits from an article that has 9 instead of 7, then we might as well do what we usually do - put them back in the main sections of the article.

Having article-based trivia bits would probably draw readers' attention to the article and see why in the first place. TNÉ _{En avant Bravo !} 03:02, October 7, 2009 (UTC)

About the trivia, I think we should keep the important bits in the article, the thing will be to consider which trivia is important and which isn't. There IS a lot of trivia that can easily be put inside the articles but other things like random stuff about voice actors and real life references should be kept in the trivia (I offer myself to do that if no one has objections). The trivia box at the FF wiki (from what I've seen at least) includes fun facts about iconic elements, main protagonists or the games themselves, we should try to keep it that way and exclude obscure trivia like "Sora's keyblade turns into the Kingdom Key while in the 1000 Heartless battle". I don't know how well we can pull that since FF is a series with a TON of games while KH is still growing but I guess we can handle it ^^. --—YerMom _{is feeling jolly} 03:43, October 7, 2009 (UTC)

Okay, if we're gonna start the template, meet me at the Mensa (click on Bravo !). I'll try develop the coding, while we all see which trivia bits to pick. TNÉ _{En avant Bravo !} 04:02, October 7, 2009 (UTC)

Any "trivia" which is actually design or plot information should be in the body of the article, no matter what. After that, any "accidental" trivia, like "Roxas poses like Goku in one scene", should be removed. Baiscally, the trivia section, if we keep it, should cover notable oddities and uniqueness, as well as purposeful references.Glorious CHAOS! 01:47, October 8, 2009 (UTC)

That's pretty obvious, isn't it ? See Template:Didyouknow - we're trying to develop something for the front page, similar to what FFW has. TNÉ _{En avant Bravo !} 03:18, October 8, 2009 (UTC)

I LOVE that template :D I think it should be added to the home page immediately :P - Iceboy^Svalur! 08:03, October 8, 2009 (UTC)

Meanwhile, if we allocate space for that template, what else should go on the Main Page ? TNÉ _{En avant Bravo !} 13:35, October 8, 2009 (UTC)

I've heard a lot of complaints about Dragon's Neck-type things across wikia, and I think it would only exacerbate our problem with non-productive edits.Glorious CHAOS! 22:52, October 8, 2009 (UTC)

If you ask me, I'd personally say forget the Dragon's Neck. The whole point of drawing people here is to make constructive edits, not otherwise. TNÉ _{En avant Bravo !} 02:01, October 9, 2009 (UTC)

3. Page Protection Discussion

Also, Xion's page might need protection as well. >.> --—YerMom _{is feeling jolly} 03:52, October 6, 2009 (UTC)

Definitely ! All OXIII pages, main character pages from the previous games as well as BBS need to be kept under lock and key. TNÉ _{En avant Bravo !} 03:55, October 6, 2009 (UTC)

I guess nobody is against this idea. Can't see why they would be anyhow. Guardian Soul 06:31, October 6, 2009 (UTC)

Hello. I am hoping that there's a time limit to this page protection business. Indefinitely locking pages in a "Kingdom Hearts database that anyone can edit!" isn't definitely our purpose. Would really be awesome if the locking mechanism be reduced by the locker to three months after the release date, or perhaps less than that. ^BLUER一番 10:30, October 6, 2009 (UTC)

Not an admin-protection, just registered user. Definitely hit up the BbS articles; specualtion will start coming in for those as the game draws closer. We can un-protect them after the Japanese or NA release. --DoorToNothing 23:15, October 6, 2009 (UTC)

I do admit an issue with the article locking as well; it entirely defeats the purpose of having a wiki in the first place. I think if we see a steep upsurge in an article being vandalized or hit with poor writing/rumors/etc, then we should block it for anons for an appropriate time period, but otherwise continue to let things evolve as they have.

This wiki (or any wiki, really) is for anyone who wants to contribute, be they second-grader or Shakespeare. BebopKate 01:12, October 7, 2009 (UTC)

All we're doing is preventing unregistered users from working on our most important articles. If we're going to have links to them on the main page/sidebar, they should constantly be in good condition. If working on those articles is that important, all they have to do is sign up. Guardian Soul 01:23, October 7, 2009 (UTC)

A user has all the right to remain as an anonymous editor or one with a username. Regardless, all pages are important, and one page is not more important than the other. If it's not too much for all of you, the protection switch will be off two months after the release date. Yes, I'm being sympathetic to anons, because I was anon myself. What do you think? ^BLUER一番 02:20, October 8, 2009 (UTC)

I'm going with Bluer's suggestion. TNÉ _{En avant Bravo !} 03:19, October 8, 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. --DoorToNothing 03:20, October 8, 2009 (UTC)

I would suggest, as a side-measure, having a backup of the page in most recent good condition accessible under it's subspace - so, Sora/Backup. This would be updated every week or so with that week's useful edits, and that way it would be easier to root out insidious vandalism. This would be a good deal of time to keep track of, but it would prevent us from needing to exclude potential editors.Glorious CHAOS! 22:52, October 8, 2009 (UTC)

Isn't the Page History a "Backup" in its own right? If anything, the community can decide which version was the ideal revision, and should anything happens - vandalism, edit wars and whatnot - just rollback to that ideal version, yeah ^^ ^BLUER一番 03:06, October 9, 2009 (UTC)

4. Other Discussion

For this:

1. I'm no good with coding so I can't really help with the infobox, but do you have an example of more or less what you'd like for the infobox that takes less space?
2. The icons stopped looking ugly for me, what do you mean with the 'notice' you mean the site notices or something?
3. We agreed references were good and necessary but I didn't quite get what needed references and what didn't.
4. I think Kryten once tried to add a template for the journal entries which looked messed up in my fugly IE. We could try again and see if this time we get to a concensus.
5. By rules you mean the wiki's rules? Because if it's that I think we need to expand the MoS a little and maybe add a Wikiconduct thing as we've had problems with this and the wiki will be growing with the release of Days and BBS.

Another thing that has to do with Days' weapons. I've seen the finished template and it looks quite good and all but honestly, i can't understand a thing. Maybe it's because i haven't played Days but I propose we add a tiny little link on the template (or the weapon's pages) that links to either a page that explains how the template works or the template itself. Here we could include what the numbers mean and all that; y'know like in the guide they have this general page where they put a random enemy and their stats and with nice easy-to-follow arrows they explain everything in the guide? But with the weapons. Just a suggestion since I've seen one or two people asking what all the numbers and / mean and Kryten having to explain. --—YerMom _{is feeling jolly} 04:21, October 6, 2009 (UTC)

It would be very easy to have the game name at the top of the weapon infobox to link back to the template page. Finished templates should also list explanations for the parameters.Glorious CHAOS! 04:50, October 6, 2009 (UTC)

I must point out that despite the "gameicon" being an awesome addition to our pages, it was mediocre-ly executed. What I would suggest is the use of smaller icons to denote which games they appear in. Maybe make the icons transparent - gifs and pngs are ideal, I think, for use. Wookieepedia's Era icons are very good references. I have faith that there are fair-use images that could aptly become symbolic representatives of the games besides the logos. ^BLUER一番 10:51, October 6, 2009 (UTC)

If someone would help me brainstorm some ideas, I'd be glad to make some panel-type sprites to represent each game... BebopKate 01:17, October 7, 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I think the whole MoS could use a large revision by the staff. Perhaps we could each take a section, revise and bring it back for further staff editing. If not, something tells me that KrytenKoro can take it all on. However, I don't want him to be pinned with so much work like he usually takes on. I think that we need a section involving vandals and the warning policy, such as if they have 3+ warnings and need an admin ban and an admin isn't available, and how they should look professional. --DoorToNothing 23:44, October 6, 2009 (UTC)

I think breaking it down between staff is a good idea; that's a lot of work for one person. I think, however, each section should be looked over by other editors to make sure nothing is left out, confusing wording is removed, and so on. Beta readers are your friend. BebopKate 01:02, October 7, 2009 (UTC)

Okay, let's talk about the MoS first. See KHWiki talk:Manual of Style - I'll be there to note any ideas for the revamp. TNÉ _{En avant Bravo !} 01:24, October 7, 2009 (UTC)

I kinda don't agree in that "by the staff" thing, don't take me wrong but lately you guys have been doing this "let the staff handle it" thing more and more, which really leaves normal users with pretty much minor stuff or nothing to do. I know you guys try to do what's best for the wiki but the whole purpose of a place that "anyone can edit" is killed when someone jumps in and says 'Let the staff handle it.' That was kinda off topic but it's also a reminder that there are pretty decent editors that are not staff, take Xiggie for an example, that can do as much as any staff member so please, cut the 'leave it to the staff' thing because in all honesty is getting annoying. --—YerMom _{is feeling jolly} 03:20, October 7, 2009 (UTC)

You know, sometimes I honestly can't remember who is staff and who is not without looking since we have so many regular editors who do a great job. You're right...it should be staff and our most reliable editors. My apologies if I offended anyone. BebopKate 02:06, October 8, 2009 (UTC)

Ahem, lemme correct that : staff and frequent users. Because I was once in that place before. TNÉ _{En avant Bravo !} 03:24, October 7, 2009 (UTC)

You're very right! *highfives Troisnyxetienne* --—YerMom _{is feeling jolly} 03:31, October 7, 2009 (UTC)

Well, what can I say ? The need to look out for my underlings just comes. ^_^ TNÉ _{En avant Bravo !} 03:32, October 7, 2009 (UTC)

Hahaha. Which infobox needs fixing?

We could use horizontal limits on the notice so that it doesn't get in the icon's space, but that's pretty much how the icons act on all the wiki's I've seen them on.

A good first start for reference practice would be Heartless. As the main mythology of the series, but not well understood, it is the perfect testing ground for writing a good, researched article.Glorious CHAOS! 22:52, October 8, 2009 (UTC)

Heartless, Bosses, possibly Nobodies, and Puzzles (when finished). But it's best to start with Heartless/Bosses first. TNÉ _{En avant Bravo !} 02:03, October 9, 2009 (UTC)

I have revoked my previous statement, and since this conversation was recently touched upon again in another Forum post, I would like to say that what I said about the staff-exclusive revision was my bad. I definitely agree that regularly contributive editors are just as important as the staffers. When I speak to someone on the wiki about a matter, I completely ignore my rank, and their rank on the wiki. And that is the way that you should think as well, a rank means nothing when we are all working towards a common goal. The staff isn't meant to be a group of "higher-ups" who you should look up to; the staff is simply a group of editors that have been voted by the community to have more priviledges to better the wiki. The community votes on the staff, so if you disagree with the staff's current actions due to their position, you were the ones who put them into their positions. Now, let there be no further talk of staff-user issues in this forum; this is meant for improving the wiki, and nothing more.

More importantly, I see that we've let this die; should we try again, or leave this Forum post inactive again? --^DTN 02:56, December 28, 2009 (UTC)