Semi Protection

UESPWiki:Community Portal/Subjective Content

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This is an archive of past UESPWiki:Community Portal discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page, except for maintenance such as updating links.

Initial Discussion

I think it is about time we discuss what the UESP is about and update our policy to 2010. Let's face it: the amount of edits made to opinion-based pages are getting out of hand, the patrollers (including me) have given up on them, non-patrollers are struggling trying to figure out what to do with the load of bad ideas that pop up on the Roleplaying/Useful-pages and the Recent Changes page are about to explode with un-patrolled edits. Patrollers and editors trying to do useful work are frustrated with the lack of control and it affects their output in a negative way, and, worst-case scenario, they loose interest in contributing to the site. Let's, for a minute, ignore the equally tremendous amount of uneven questions made to the talk pages all over the wiki, and focus on the opinion-based content. Let's focus on three words:

Must-have, Useful and Roleplaying.

These pages exist as part of the wiki's content and have nothing to do with talk pages. The pages are forum-like, heavy-edited pages that we can't control, nor do we really want to. I find it ironic and contradictive that we revert talk page edits with the edit summary "this is not a forum" while we allow these pages to grow and grow, making it nearly impossible to know what is right or wrong – for editors and patrollers alike. I have lost count of the complaints I have received on the IRC about these pages and now it seems that we are simply starting to ignore the fact that they exist. Neph tried to come up with a solution, AlbinoOrc tried to follow it up, but I think it is obvious that nobody wants to touch these pages. I will not attempt to come up with a solution now, I just want opinions: What do you think about these pages? Are they useful? Are they a must-have? Have you ever heard of a gamer thinking: "Man, I can't solve this quest – I think I'll find a useful spell to help me out."? Editors, patrollers and admins – we need to figure this out now. --Krusty 10:11, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

I agree that the wiki is for information, facts, tips and walkthroughs, but some of the users obviously enjoy this content, so outright deleting it would not help. Perhaps a specific namespace would satisfy everyone, to have the information away from general statistics, walkthroughs, locations, odd facts and the likes. I know several other wikis that do this – even Wikipedia has Essay: for opinion pieces. However, UESP does have the virtue of owning a forum and a blog, so perhaps the opinion pieces could be directed there. Proudly Ashborn- [verify] 10:44, 1 August 2010 (UTC)
I agree with Krusty. We already have suggestions for the mods page (let each user list mods in their userspace and use the page as a hub) and Roleplaying (pretty much the same). That means we can start using Userspace patrollers and let them keep edits under control. The Useful Spells page contains some useful spells, and it's usually kept pretty much under control. Timenn cleaned it up a while back and he and I don't let it get too far out of control, although it's difficult when people come on with an agenda to push (those useless chain spells, for instance). The Useful Potions page tends to be pretty static so I don't think it's a problem. Useful Enchantments gets some real dross, and I note that somebody has added another useless set of swords with far too much detail (and I just deleted them).
There are a few things that make the "Useful" series of pages worth keeping, but the others should be cleaned up along the lines already discussed. I'll make a start on the Mods page but I never quite understood the roleplaying plan. Maybe Nephele can explain more. rpeh •T•C•E• 12:48, 1 August 2010 (UTC)
I have a few suggestions. I make a RP forum thread, post every section as a comment to this thread. before that starts we protect the thing and take out a ton of the bad/useless ideas. then once I'm done we redirect to the forum thread. Or we "trim" it and lock it and possibly add a proposed page in the user namespace and add some more Userspace Patrollers than just me.--Corevette789 16:30, 1 August 2010 (UTC)
The Useful Spells page, to me, was never useful because 1.) Only some of my characters had access to spellmaking alters, and 2.) It was too much of a hastle, when you could whip up your own, a spell only you consider "Useful". Must-Have mods are different for everyone, of course. And I'll say again, I really want to start cleaning up the Roleplaying pages. I actually may made a sandbox of one section... an example of how it should look like. --Arch-Mage MattTalk 01:31, 3 August 2010 (UTC)
I couldn't help myself, so I went ahead and made this. I hope it will be the example page for all roleplaying pages. I might have gone a little delete happy, but the final result looks much better. It copies the Fighter or Warrior section. Compare the two and you'll need to admit that my version does look neater, at least. --Arch-Mage MattTalk 03:15, 3 August 2010 (UTC)
Third post in a row, I'm starting to think I'm talking to myself... anyways, I'd like confirmation to replace this article with this one. It's true, I may have deleted a "bit" too many entries, but I do have a reason for all of them. --Arch-Mage MattTalk 04:00, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

Based on Matt's cleanup-project in his Sandbox and the somewhat expected amount of replies (given that we are in the middle of the summer holidays), I have a proposal for some changes that could make life at ton easier on all of us – without deleting content and upsetting a lot of people who have spend hours and hours improving the pages. This solution could be temporary, just to see how it goes – but I believe it would be a whole lot better than the current situation and, especially, better than all the Quality Tags about heavy-edited articles and so on. My idea is:

  • We decide that we have had enough excellent ideas on the above mentioned pages, which basically boils down to opinion-based content-pages like Roleplaying, Useful-pages, Must-have pages and Idea-pages.
  • We clean up what we have. Rpeh's reply indicates that he is willing to do a bit of cleanup and Matt's sandbox looks good. If we all participate, then this should be a walkover.
  • We lock ands protect all opinion-based content. No more edits and ideas on these pages. We create a new tag, which points creative editors to:
  • Proposed-pages for each page, basically the same as the Oblivion:Glitches/Proposed page – like Roleplaying/Proposed (all categories under ONE roof), Useful Spells/Proposed ect. This will give us some much-needed peace and quiet, especially in the Roleplaying section, where all ideas will turn up on one page only. No edits can be done to the main pages, only to the Proposed-pages, which mean the community can discuss whether or not the ideas are good before they are added to the main pages – and we can avoid the chaos we are facing now.

It is pretty simple and I believe it could improve the current situation a lot. Sure, the Proposed-pages will experience a whole lot of traffic, but the traffic will be much more submissive, and make editors think twice before adding a half-baked idea. That last point alone would be worth all the effort. I'm obviously keen on the idea, so let's hear it – yay or nay? --Krusty 08:08, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure how well using a /Proposed page will help with the problems. With the Glitches page, it just means that the /Proposed page fills up until someone decides to clean it up, and I have a bad feeling that a Roleplaying/Proposed page would be even worse. I think the Useful pages are... just about... good enough to keep as they are, although I wouldn't object to a /Proposed page for these. The Must Have Mods page proposal will Userfy most content so there shouldn't be a problem.
The bigger problem is that if you're talking about semi-protection then it won't stop a lot of the problem anyway. I'd say that a fairly high amount of content added to these pages comes from users who are auto-confirmed, so semi-protection won't stop them bypassing the /Proposed page. If you're talking about full protection, then only admins will be able to integrate the content. It might be worth going back and trying to work out how effective the scheme would have been before we spend a lot of time implementing it. I'll go ahead with the Mods changes once I get around to writing up my own list. rpeh •T•C•E• 10:48, 4 August 2010 (UTC)
(e/c) I'm all for adding some restrictions to the more liberal content pages, but we must keep in mind that not all of them are really bad. When I started cleaning up Oblivion:Useful Spells I expected that only a few marginally useful spells would remain. This was not the case, some clever ideas were buried under the big pile of entries. I disagree with the assessment that no editor is going to search for useful spells. The amount of questions asked by various editors on these matters should tell otherwise. Maintaining a few articles with general tips instead of walkthrough specific info should not be a problem. It's all about keeping the lid on the barrel, it should not get out of hand (e.g. Roleplaying).
Oblivion:Glitches/Proposed should point out the failure of an attempt to create an efficient process of proposal->acceptance->implementation; new proposals are rarely reviewed and linger on for years. It's very easy to propose a new idea, the difficulty lies in the refinement of it. So I'd say to only accept entries if people have a refined idea they are willing to immediately add to the article, without much further need of reviewing. If the added content fails to meet the quality standards, other editors should be free to remove it. If the editor finds the idea truely interesting, but not refined enough, he/she can always move it to the talk page. If an editor has a clever suggestion, but not the ability to write a full section on it, he/she should post something on the talk page. The trick on getting other editors to review it is to make your proposal interesting enough that other editors feel inclined to jump in, not because they have to, but because they are intrigued.
It's hard to overhaul all said articles with new content criteria. I think it's mostly a lesson we should learn for when new articles like these are created (for TES V, for example). I would support making the Roleplaying articles static though, but I think we can maintain the rest. --Timenn-<talk> 10:55, 4 August 2010 (UTC)
(e/c) (response to rpeh's post) I meant full protection, of course. While I agree that the Must-have and Useful-pages are less of a problem, this could work with the RP pages and simply lessen the amount of edits made to the various subcategories. I, for one, would gladly do the extra effort and add the approved ideas from a Proposed/Roleplaying-page to the relevant content page, and I'm pretty sure the other admins will do it as well. --Krusty 10:58, 4 August 2010 (UTC)
I agree with Krusty's idea, the only problem I can think would happen is the shock that no one can edit the roleplaying pages anymore, which some people would certainly be against. But it would make them much less of an eyesore. --Arch-Mage MattTalk 13:46, 4 August 2010 (UTC)
Nevermind the shock. If we simply deleted the whole lot, then people would be shocked. This solution keeps all the existing information on the pages, it just makes sure that we avoid edits like this. Also, based on the above opinions, I would like to limit my suggestion to the Roleplaying pages only - for now. Both Timenn and rpeh have a point regarding the Useful-pages, so let us stick to RP and test the technique. But before we start, it would be nice with some more opinions, especially because we are about to fully protect a lot of pages + it would be great if we could find some volunteers to clean up the existing pages one by one. Matt? ;) --Krusty 14:12, 4 August 2010 (UTC)
I think I could help... :) When it's ready to start, I'd guess I'd make more sandboxes, then. --Arch-Mage MattTalk 15:08, 4 August 2010 (UTC)
That's an awesome proposal, Krusty, though I do have reservations about how effective the /Proposed page is likely to be, mainly that it won't be at all. However, even if the /Proposed is a mess in the end, it is only one page as opposed to the quite large amount of Roleplaying pages there are. And as for cleaning up the current RP pages, I may be willing to lend a hand. --Darkle ~ Talk 16:10, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

(←) I think the best solution for "must-have" and "roleplaying" articles is to userfy them all. They're not really wiki-type material. I'd say the same about "useful" articles, but if there are established and talented editors that think they're worth maintaining as-is, then I'll leave 'em to them. --GKtalk2me 19:13, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

I hope that means they still need to be cleaned up... I've been working on that for a couple of days. If they were to be userfy-ed, I'd still think it would be best to protect them.--Arch-Mage Matt Did I Do That? 20:02, 7 August 2010 (UTC)
Cleanup is always a good thing. I worked on the Roleplaying articles for several months (you should've seen 'em when there were over a hundred subpages), but there's really no real reason to host 'em on the wiki; this seems to be a reasonable compromise. I also don't see any reason the userfied pages would need to be edited. The way I understood it, the roleplaying ideas would be treated like the Fanfictions; a roleplaying article would be in a user's userspace, so that user is the one that edits it. I don't fully understand the way they would be linked within the wiki, but I would think that the central page that lists the users' roleplaying articles would be at least semi-protected to prevent it being flooded and overwhelmed. In fact, I'd be perfectly fine with a guideline of sorts saying that we're not going to delete what's already here, but we're also not going to host any new roleplaying articles. --GKtalk2me 20:43, 7 August 2010 (UTC)
I vaugely remember the old Rp pages, like Santa Claus and Mr. Nice Guy. Speaking of the articles, in the final cleanup I'd like for the Collecter page and the Scientist page to be merged into the Jobs and Mage pages, since they both are so small right now. --Arch-Mage Matt Did I Do That? 22:44, 7 August 2010 (UTC)
I'm getting confused now... are we userfying the stuff (in which case where does it go) or cleaning up (and leaving where it is???)
What exactly is being proposed? rpeh •T•C•E• 23:47, 7 August 2010 (UTC)
I still like Krusty's idea. --Arch-Mage Matt Did I Do That? 23:50, 7 August 2010 (UTC)
I like the intent behind Krusty's idea, but I don't like the idea of content pages that only admins can edit. I'm struggling to think of cases where this has happened before even for a few minutes - usually, the solution was to block the person or people making disruptive edits but leave the pages open to everybody else.
I think we've arrived at a set of resolutions: Useful * pages - we can keep in check. Sometimes it might take a couple of days, but by and large useless stuff doesn't last for long. Must Have Mods will be userfied except for the unofficial patches. Roleplaying... I'm still not sure how that one works. Userfy, sure... but what goes where? rpeh •T•C•E• 00:12, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

(←) Regarding the roelplaying articles, this is the way I understood it;

The individual subpages (or sections of the subpages; I wasn't too clear on this part of it) would be put up for "adoption". Then editors would be able to "adopt" the article, move it to their own userspace (something like "User:GK/Roleplaying/Farmer"), and edit or adjust as they saw fit. After a pre-determined amount of time, any articles that weren't adopted we would assume weren't really used by anyone, since no one cared enough about them to adopt them. At that point, we'd delete any that users hadn't moved into their own userspace.

This way, if anyone was particularly attached to a specific roleplay, they'd have the opportunity to ensure it wouldn't be deleted. I'm not sure what Neph's proposal was for the policy after this was done, but I'd love to see a policy that we would not host any more Roleplaying articles. --GKtalk2me 02:33, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

I've already taken five pages, plus the main one. ( example) It's not that I like a specific one (Actually, the exact opposite...) but I took them under the impression that they would be kept in the main space. --Arch-Mage Matt Did I Do That? 03:06, 8 August 2010 (UTC)
Matt, no matter what we end up with, it is brilliant to get the pages cleaned up and for once get it systematized. I still don't understand the Userfying suggestion to handling the RP pages (and I have a feeling we can discuss it for several years), but my vote is still on a new Roleplaying/Proposed page and a firm lock on all regular RP pages (after Matt's cleanup, of course). If the system turns out to have its flaws, or only works partially, I'm still 100% positive it is a better solution until we can figure out Neph's suggestion. --Krusty 14:49, 9 August 2010 (UTC)
I finished, but it may need some minor cleanup. And you might notice that the Ruler page is not included -- simply because almost every section in it is mod, or pc, dependant. Count, Ayleid Ruler, Emporer, everything needs the console, or mods. Nothing on that page can an Xbox user do fully. That's why I'd like it to be deleted in the final ... whatever we're doing. I also merged the Merchant and Collecter into the jobs page, and the Scientist into the mage page. And here's a list of all of them: One, Fighter, Two, Wilderness Dweller, Three, Main Page, Four, Mage, Five, Lifestyles, Six, Religious Enthusiast, Seven, Assassin, Eight, Jobs, Nine, Guards, and Ten, the Criminal page. --Arch-Mage Matt Did I Do That? 20:34, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

(←) Good work, Matt! Now we just need a consensus. Rpeh wrote a good list describing the future of the Must-Have and Useful-pages:

  • Useful pages - we can keep in check. Sometimes it might take a couple of days, but by and large useless stuff doesn't last for long.
  • Must Have Mods will be userfied except for the unofficial patches. The post below shows how this works and it looks good - people have already started implementing favorite mods in their own userspace, so we will just have to wait and see how things turn out.

Now, for the Roleplaying pages. Admitted, I haven't read through all Matt's changes yet, but the pages looks good, some pages have been merged with others, and they appear orginized. Now, this edit is from today and shows exactly why I proposed the full protection in the first place. We can discuss and try to figure out Neph's intentions for a long time, but until Neph herself shows up with the full explanation, we might as well give Matt the permission to add his changes to the pages. Whether or not we are going to protect them (for now) is up for discussion. I'm still for it, obviously, but I sense a few "opposes" out there, and it would be great to reach consensus now. Mind you, we do not necessarily lock them forever, merely as an attempt to control the heavy-edited pages. Matt, you should probably wait for some responses before launching your changes. --Krusty 07:53, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

I still don't like the idea of fully-protecting content, but I hate edits like that one even less. I suppose using this as a stopgap is fair enough. rpeh •T•C•E• 09:57, 10 August 2010 (UTC)
I do think it's a good idea, because several confirmed users still edit the space. I think everyone's new ideas should go through a trial before it's put on the page. --Arch-Mage Matt Did I Do That? 20:40, 10 August 2010 (UTC)
No, that's the point. Full protection means that only admins can edit it. While I think that's fine for vital pages and for various other pages that users can't possibly improve (eg, Financial information), I don't like it for content. rpeh •T•C•E• 22:32, 10 August 2010 (UTC)
You have a point. But given the recent edit of content that was going to be removed if it goes by my pages - I'd like to have something happen, at least within the next couple of days. It'd be nice to have people stop wasting their efforts on the less-than-quality pages that they are now. --Arch-Mage Matt Did I Do That? 04:58, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
Fair enough, Matt. I think the Wiki is a tiny bit quiet because of the summer and I understand why you want to launch your work as soon as possible. However, given the controversy of the proposal we need some sort of consensus or, at least, some more opinions from the patrollers and admins. I'll try to get in touch with everybody over the weekend. In the meantime, please keep an eye on the changes made to the RP pages, just to make sure they don't clash with your work and the upcoming overhaul. --Krusty 12:14, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
I'm almost the opposite of what you said (I'm thinking I'll be less active as the Summer ends). That's why I tried to "Hurry it along". I can see your reasoning though, so go ahead and do whatever you need to do.  :) --Arch-Mage Matt Did I Do That? 12:29, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
I haven't contributed to this discussion so far, because I'm not really sure what I can usefully add. I've already done what I could to present my ideas about how the roleplaying pages could be moved into the userspace. From GK's accurate summary of my ideas, it seems that what I previously said was understood. I think the only way to make the concepts more concrete -- and the best way to work out the details -- is to start actually implementing some changes. If I had the time, I'd be willing to do some of the work, but that's simply not possible right now.
Reading through the rest of this discussion, the only thing on which I have a real opinion is that I think the Glitches/Proposed page has been a failure, for the same basic reasons already detailed by Timenn and others.
If the community desperately wants to make some type of immediate change, it seems to me that implementing Arch-Mage Matt's versions of the pages then locking them is the most viable short-term solution. In addition, I'd suggest putting a notice on the RP page telling editors who have contributions to start writing up their ideas on their own user page (or a subpage) -- or to copy an existing idea to their user page if they would like to modify it. Giving editors some options should limit the amount of angry backlash, plus it may result in some progress towards userfying the content. It's not a long-term solution -- maintaining the RP page should not be turned into an admin responsibility -- but it helps with some of the problems. --NepheleTalk 23:46, 19 August 2010 (UTC)
While that would give an excuse to revert any edits we wouldn't want to clean up - just like the sic tags on pages people (Especially anonymous users, who don't have userpages) would still largely ignore notices like that, I'd think.
And I don't really think the proposed pages would go over so badly -- doing some digging- I see that the Glitches/Proposed pages came out in 2006, while the patroller group came out in 2007, and it only really became official and structured several months later. Now, however, with several patrollers monitering the Recent changes, It seems like we might be able to handle it.
Another Idea would be for the Proposed page to be userfied itself, so nothing is made official and the user it goes under can manage it better. --Arch-Mage Matt Did I Do That? 01:37, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

(←) Okay, I think this discussion is long enough by now - and Nephele's reply gives the impression that the community overall supports the idea. Once again, I want to point out that it is not necessarily a permanent solution, merely a way to deal with the problem here and now - and maybe later, when Neph gets more free time, we can make the transition to userspace. Bad, unneeded edits are being made each and every day to the RP pages, so lets try this one: Serious objections can be made until this friday and then the following will happen:

  • Matt adds all his work to the pages and clean them up. Some patrollers and admins will proofread them (hard task, but hey, its our job) and give them the patrolled stamp.
  • An admin locks ALL RP pages (excluding the talk pages for now) and adds a notice that explains why the page is locked. The notice will also link people to:
  • The newly made Roleplaying/Proposed page that will now function as the ONLY way for new RP ideas.

Friday, people. --Krusty 12:31, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

As long as it's a temporary fix, I'll support this. I think everybody agrees that a /Proposed page isn't going to work in the long term, and I agree that admins shouldn't be left with having to maintain the RP pages. I'd prefer to see a definite date to move onto whatever next stage people want to head towards, because I'm worried this might end up becoming de facto permanent, but given the appalling quality of recent edits, I'll put up with almost anything as a stop-gap. rpeh •T•C•E• 12:48, 25 August 2010 (UTC)
My one question would be why even create a Roleplaying/Proposed page? Why not just tell users to put any "proposed" RPs on their user pages? If there's general agreement that we want to move RPs to user pages, it seems more logical to start putting the content there instead of creating a page that many people think is a mistake and everyone agrees we don't want in the long term. --NepheleTalk 14:32, 25 August 2010 (UTC)
I agree with Nephele's point, let's just tell users to start putting them in User space and adding a [[:Category:Roleplaying Ideas]] tag to it. That way, we can find them easily if we decide to do anything further with them, and they're out of the way in User space in the mean time. Apart from that, I support Krusty's idea completely. – Robin Hood↝talk 15:54, 25 August 2010 (UTC)
sorry bout butting in but i would like to say that i agree with robin and nephele, if you're gonna strat something, start it now--GUM!!! 18:47, 25 August 2010 (UTC)
Krusty, I'll tell you now that I copy-and-pasted (I think) every article into Microsoft Word for a spellcheck, so you don't need to check for that. --Arch-Mage Matt Did I Do That? 19:06, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

(←) We should still go over it, though, as spell-checkers and even grammar-checkers aren't perfect, as ewe can see. :) – Robin Hood↝talk 19:29, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

My reason for the Proposed-page was to give creative roleplayers a page where they could write down their ideas, nothing more. But I'll agree with Neph and RH70 that the other solution is even better, especially if we, at some point, move the RP pages into userspace. But then I hope one of you two (Neph or RH) will write an appropriate notice to put on top of the pages. --Krusty 20:49, 25 August 2010 (UTC)
What kind of notice are you thinking of, and for which pages? Just something that informs users that Roleplaying pages should now be created in User space? – Robin Hood↝talk 21:43, 25 August 2010 (UTC)
Yep, something like that; a friendly message informing roleplayers that we have closed the pages due to heavy traffic (or whatever works best) and that new ideas can be created in the [[:Category:Roleplaying Ideas]], on their own userpage, on the Proposed-page - or whatever we decide. It would probably be a good idea to aim it towards Nephele's upcoming userspace-thingy, so maybe she has a good idea for a notice? --Krusty 22:19, 25 August 2010 (UTC)
Wow, can't believe I did that. Thanks for fixing the question location! <blush> The message should be easy enough...I think a simple {{Message}} template should be sufficient. – Robin Hood↝talk 22:47, 25 August 2010 (UTC)
Okay, I've created {{RPtoUserspace}} as a first stab at a banner for the pages. If we want, once the pages are deleted, we can modify it a bit and leave it in place as the entire content of Oblivion:Roleplaying. Obviously, the text still needs work, and we need to figure out how exactly we'll be indicating which articles have been adopted and which haven't. In the message text, I've tentatively suggested simply creating a list of what's been adopted, then an Administrator can either delete the entry from the appropriate RP page or list it as "(Adopted)". The latter has the benefit that multiple users can adopt the same idea and take it in a different direction. I'm not convinced this is the best way to handle it, but the only other way I could think of to deal with adoptions was to not lock the pages and let users just do the work themselves, reverting all edits that aren't adoption-related. – Robin Hood↝talk 18:45, 27 August 2010 (UTC)
The template looks good. The problem is that I think this would create a new subpage which wasn't really the proposal before if I remember correctly (see Nephele's page under roleplaying tests). Not that I have a problem with it but I just thought I should make sure that this was actually what the pseudo-consensus from before was.--TheAlbinoOrcany_questions? 22:52, 27 August 2010 (UTC)
You're right, the original had been for just a single page. I've changed the template to match that proposal, including removing the instructions for the category, as I think Nephele's sub-categories created by the template make a lot more sense. – Robin Hood↝talk 23:56, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Must-Have Mods

Okay, I've userfied this page now. Yes, I blanked over 1/2 the page, but I believe there was consensus for this change here. Let me know if you have problems with this new system, and please create your own mods pages - things are looking a little sparse at the moment! rpeh •T•C•E• 17:02, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

My favorite types of mods are Companion Mods - I can name a few good ones. (Great ones, actually.) --Arch-Mage Matt Did I Do That? 17:20, 8 August 2010 (UTC)
Just as a side-point to the Must-Have Mods, do we want a User Mods Page category (or whatever you want to call it)? Or would that just end up being essentially a duplication of the page? I'm a big fan of using Categories for things like this, but there are certainly times when it's just redundant. – Robin Hood↝talk 06:01, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
I would have thought it would make navigating a lot easier, so I am in favour of such a category being created. Jadrax 06:49, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

Wrap-up

Just resurrecting this thread. Did we want to put the banner in place so that users know what's going on and can stop suggesting ideas on talk pages? ;) – Robin Hood↝talk 19:10, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

Hmm. Two things: I think that we can move to semi-protection - the last three proposed sections were started by IPs and I'd like to start adopting things now. Also what are the new guidelines for roleplaying? For example: Are we allowing things from non-ES sources now? What about things that require the console? It seems like it's going to be a bit harder to regulate now - especially without editing other peoples pages. (We may actually have to relax that rule a bit; if we put content on userpages we still have to be able to fix spelling and grammar since this is still going to be part of our public image).--TheAlbinoOrcany_questions? 19:30, 3 September 2010 (UTC)
I removed all non-ES related content, Ninja, Geisha, etc. I don't like those things, but it's up to everyone. I also refused to do the Ruler page on the grounds that only two of the suggestions could be done without the console. Only 1/3 of the people reading have the PC, so it wouldn't be good for them to skip over half the articles that require the computer. And there are still confirmed users wanting to edit the pages.
And I yet again bring up the fact that the Ruler page remained untouched. I'd like to propose it's deletion, but it is up to everyone.--Arch-Mage Matt Did I Do That? 19:37, 3 September 2010 (UTC)
But now that people can choose to skip it since it's on different pages, why shouldn't we just make a couple of subcategorys and have a special template to add PC only or non-ES related content to those?--TheAlbinoOrcany_questions? 19:44, 3 September 2010 (UTC)
I can accept that PC content may be included, (It's not as bad as other things,) and I left the occsasional mod reccomendation there, but still things like Ninja and Geisha and the like seem just silly for Oblivion RP suggestions.
Given that these are going into User space, I see no reason to "forbid" any type of roleplay. A good set of categories would definitely be useful, though, like those requiring mods or console use. I don't think too many people would complain if you added or removed categories appropriate to that type of page. And yeah, semi-protection might be the way to go here, and people can just cut & paste anything they want to keep/adopt. It might be hard for beginners to find the lost content, but if anybody mentions it, there are lots of us to help them recover the content before it gets deleted. (Not to mention, an Admin can alway undelete and userfy if necessary.) – Robin Hood↝talk 20:31, 3 September 2010 (UTC)
I'm going to start a new discussion on the CP about what exactly we should do as far as editing other peoples pages to fix the content on them - it seems like it's a big enough thing that it deserves to not be in a discussion that most people seem to have been ignoring.--TheAlbinoOrcany_questions? 20:39, 3 September 2010 (UTC)
There's no need for a separate discussion - this is already the CP - it's just a subpage. It's listed in the "Active Discussions" section so people should be able to find it.
But this is the thing I still don't understand. If people create a Paladin roleplay (for instance), can anybody edit it? Can they add but not change? Can they not edit it at all? Do people have to create their own version? How do subpages get added to the central articles?
I've said since the start that I don't understand exactly what is being proposed, and we're now in a "Wrap-up" section, and I still don't understand. I don't think I'm being particularly thick here - I just think there's an awful lot of hand-waving going on. As a patroller, I need to know exactly what is being suggested here. At the moment, I don't think anybody has any clear idea. rpeh •T•C•E• 20:49, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

Wrap Up (Edit break 1)

(←) My understanding, which may or may not match anybody else's, is that each user would be free to keep their own version and personalize it to their tastes, just like the various Mods lists. Assuming that that's the case, then the questions about editing become fairly moot. It's not unusual to correct faulty categories in User space and do other site-maintenance edits, but apart from that, editing is forbidden unless specifically stated otherwise. If I've understood Nephele's template correctly, it'll allow the same article to be categorized in the same category multiple times with different names, thus allowing the Roleplaying category to contain Paladin, Ninja, and Tax Lawyer entries even though they're just sections of the same page. That said, there's no reason I can think of that they couldn't be on subpages as well. – Robin Hood↝talk 21:06, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

Modeling it after the Must-Have Mods would probably be as good as we can do now. (Additions, though, we can't delete those that are there now, after what I did! :) -) And that could also mean while keeping the others as they are, we usefy the Ruler page. --Arch-Mage Matt Did I Do That? 21:11, 3 September 2010 (UTC)
Okay, but I would point out that most edits to the RP sections are people making tweaks rather than full additions. People add things like another place to live, another weapon to use, a different skill to prioritize, a different way of living. Both replies so far would seem to suggest that such edits will no longer be allowed - that's certainly how I understand things. What happens in such cases? Do we simply say "Tough - the other guy got there first and we're not interested in what you think" or "Copy the whole section from that guy's page to your own and add your suggestion there, then add a link to the central page"?
The comparison to Recommended mods (it's been merged now!) doesn't work. The mods I list on my mods page are the ones I use, and nobody can possibly give me a more accurate or useful list of the mods I use than me. With roleplaying, anybody might have an idea that would improve the page (deletion would be my favourite)
I'm sorry if this comes across as just being difficult, but I honestly don't see how this works. rpeh •T•C•E• 21:27, 3 September 2010 (UTC)
I understand your point completely, and I think that's just the price we have to pay for Userfying the pages. Instead of tweaks to the pages, we'll get suggestions on the talk pages instead. At least, that's what I would see happening. I could also see a system where edits are allowed freely, but the maintaining user is the final arbiter. – Robin Hood↝talk 21:35, 3 September 2010 (UTC)
In which case, I have to ask... why are we doing this? Instead of a set of OB:Roleplaying/Whatever pages that all the patrollers ignore, we end up with User:Whoever/Whatever pages that all the patrollers ignore. Just like a /Proposed page, this is moving the problem somewhere else - it isn't going to solve it.
I hate to say it, but the only option I can see really working is to delete the whole damn lot. Apologies to AMM, and to GuildKnight before him, because I know both of them spent a lot of time trying to fix this, but I don't see how we can make this work without causing more problems than we solve. rpeh •T•C•E• 21:42, 3 September 2010 (UTC)
I'd rather useryfy them... for the obvious reason. --Arch-Mage Matt Did I Do That? 21:46, 3 September 2010 (UTC)
(e/c) This is exactly why I suggested a Roleplaying/Proposed page in the first place. I never really understood the Userspace thing either, but figured that somebody else did - if moving it into a different namespace will give us the exact same amount of work as before, then there is absolutely no reason to do it. For now, I simply suggest that we keep the pages locked - we have had 4 or 5 edits to the RP talk pages since the big shutdown and that is a LOT less than before - and no editors changing "Alteration" to "Speechcraft" and that sort of thing. And no, we should definitely not make the pages semi-protected at this point. --Krusty 21:49, 3 September 2010 (UTC)
I don't think a /Proposed page works either - we've seen what happens over at Oblivion:Glitches. The full protection has worked so far because I think at least some people have read the warnings at the top of the RP pages, but as soon as you say "Post to the /Proposed page instead" with a handy link, we'll get the usual dross appearing.
It won't ever be as bad as Glitches, I suspect, because it's too easy to say "it hapened to me to i was waking down some rode" etc on Glitches but less easy to say "i think marades shoud liv at becclehorn castle cos its cool and you coud pretend to fite enemey's and such". At least the latter requires some thought.
Can we not simply dump this turd on the Forums? Create a Roleplaying forum (for all I know there already is one) and use soft redirects to send people there? Forums are designed to have badly-written, ill-informed suggestions dribbled on them, but the only wikis that manage that successfully are Conservapedia and ED. rpeh •T•C•E• 22:08, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

(←) My original goal with the Roleplaying/Proposed page was to limit edits made to the entire Roleplaying section and only allow RPers to edit one page. My hope was that such a change would make life easier for patrollers and slow down the high-annoyance edits. While you are definitely right about the heavy traffic such a page would get, I'm pretty convinced that it will make people think (at least a bit) before editing, knowing that their RP idea has to be of a ceratin standard to fit this wiki. I'm also convinced that the very reason that the Glitches/Proposed page is a failure is the very fact that the Glitches page is semi-protected "only". It is not incredibly hard to make an account, even if your ideas are bad and your glitches hopeless. --Krusty 22:38, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

I'm not trying to support Userfying them (frankly, I'm at about as much a loss as anybody else on the best way to handle them), but I think the intended benefit of Userfying was that they could be treated like any other User page: Patrollers simply check to make sure that there's nothing grossly inappropriate, then patrol them and let the maintaining user worry about upkeep. As already pointed out, there are some definite downsides to the approach, but it would take a lot of RP work and sometimes-difficult judgement calls off the Patrollers, I think. – Robin Hood↝talk 22:49, 3 September 2010 (UTC)
Why? If a user decides to put suggestion on their own page, it is their own problem then. Anyone can just check it, like you said, make sure it's appropriate, then move on. --Arch-Mage Matt Did I Do That? 22:55, 3 September 2010 (UTC)
Matt, I'm willing to listen to any suggestion right now. Please can you give us your answers to the questions I asked above (If people create a Paladin roleplay (for instance), can anybody edit it? Can they add but not change? Can they not edit it at all? Do people have to create their own version? How do subpages get added to the central articles?)
Let me be clear here: I do not intend in any way to be dogmatic on this issue. I'm fully aware I have a reputation for arguing but in this case, I'm only trying to understand what will happen and to point out what I consider to be problems with the various suggestions. I will support any suggestion that makes sense and that doesn't force either patrollers or admins to spend too much time fixing edits. At the moment, I think Krusty's suggestion would work best (although deletion would work better!) because I haven't seen answers to the questions I've asked: questions that will need to be answered when the proposed system goes live. rpeh •T•C•E• 23:16, 3 September 2010 (UTC)
As an example, it could go like this:

There are many ways to roleplay in Oblivion... blah blah blah... these are some suggestions on what to do. (Links to old RP pages)

Here are some users who have some suggested ideas for roleplaying. Note that some of these suggestions may not be as high quality as the official ones.

User:Josh/RP-Suggestions

It says... palidons r cool they do good stuff they are warriors be a nord to be a palidin. were steel armor and do nice stuff do everything but the DB and TG. get 1000 fame, downlowd mods [[Example]] and [[Example]]. they will make bieng a palidin cool.

No matter how much we hate this, Josh here has a right to write whatever he wants, as it is under his page. We just need to listen to that note saying Note that some of these suggestions may not be as high quality as the official ones. --Arch-Mage Matt Did I Do That? 23:32, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

Right... but that doesn't answer the questions. Can I fix the spelling? Can I change the recommended race? Can I edit that at all? If not, do I have to copy and paste all that to my own /Paladin page and put in what I think should happen? If so, do we link to both versions of the Paladin page? Do we really want ten different versions of how to be a paladin? Do we really want to have to patrol ten different pages describing how to be a paladin? I'm still not seeing answers here. rpeh •T•C•E• 23:40, 3 September 2010 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Due to the EC, I'll respond to rpeh first, since it's short: I don't care for the idea myself, but yes, the ten-Paladins scenario is what I believe could happen with the Userfied solution. Still, patrolling User space is pretty quick when you don't need to worry about making corrections.
Matt: I'm not entirely sure what the "Why?" part of your question was in reference to. If it was to why I'm not trying to support Userfying, don't take that too harshly—to-date, that's the option I like best, but as rpeh and others have pointed out, it's not without questions that would need to be resolved. Like you, I agree that once a user adopts it, it's their page, but I can foresee others wanting to try to contribute and feeling they don't have a way to short of adopting the whole section.
As for some of the other ideas, as much as I'd personally love to delete the Roleplaying pages, I don't think I can support that option, since I've come to realize that a number of people are clearly making use of them. I'm not a fan of the Proposed option, though I can see some benefit in that. And similarly, the jury's out on rpeh's forums idea for me as well—I'm not sure how the Forums people would like us dumping our problem on them, and I'm sure the ideas would lose most or all of the formatting...but at the same time, I've seen a number of roleplaying forum threads for other games that have worked out quite well, and it does seem to me to be a bit more appropriate there, since it allows people to comment on or contribute to the original idea without altering it directly. So you can see why I'm a little lost as to the best option here.
In the end, my vote would be to Userfy, but you won't hear a peep outta me if we move them to Forums, and only a tiny little "I don't care for it" for Proposed. :) – Robin Hood↝talk 23:47, 3 September 2010 (UTC)
One of the things Nephele intended to happen at the same time this was to create "Userspace Patrollers". Basically they have the right to check edits in userspace but nowhere else; it was intended to work with the new option to hide namespaces in Recent Changes and take some of the load off the gamespace patrollers. They were also intended to be responsible for userfied content.--TheAlbinoOrcany_questions? 00:00, 4 September 2010 (UTC)
Let's say if Josh decides to allow others to edit his page. It would not be your duty to change it, you can change it if you want to. If Josh doesn't allow others to edit his page, that is why his page is called User:Josh/RP-Suggestions not User:Josh/Paladin. If anyone else wants to have a paladin, they'd make, again, a /Rp-Suggestions not /Paladin. It'd be less of a clutter that way, as they could put other things in it.
And if Josh allowed people to edit his page, obviously, people cannot remove, change extremely (Reword his entire article) or add other suggestions.
And I'm sure that mods like Josjie and Leliah (The two I can think of now) on the forums will not like our problems dumped on them, like you said. They'll have to read and make sure everything is appropriate instead of us. --Arch-Mage Matt Did I Do That? 00:05, 4 September 2010 (UTC)
Yes, dumping it on the forums would be a pretty unkind way of dealing with it, but... well tough. The forums are where people already go for "So whats hte best sword in the game i like golbrand but some ppl seem to liek ubra????" so people arguing over illusion vs conjuration as a skill for some roleplay is par for the course.
I've said before (but can't be bothered to find diffs) that if you need to be told how to roleplay then you're not doing it right. YOU are supposed to be a Paladin, and it's up to you to work out what that means: if you need to be told what to do then RPGs are not for you. On that basis, the entire roleplaying section could be reduced to one-line statements: "Paladin: become the honorable champion of a cause - noble or otherwise".
Anyway. At this point, we're pretty much talking round in circles. I'm going to leave this debate now, and all I ask is that we get a clear set of guidelines for how whatever solution is picked is supposed to work. If we end up with more hand-waving, then we'll just be moving the problem to another place. rpeh •T•C•E• 00:05, 4 September 2010 (UTC)
I mainly am arguing for the non-deletion of them is because I've cleaned them. And I think I might be the most active Forum user and UESP user (That I know of...), and that's not saying a lot because I only contribute to the Trivia, mainly, but I have seen that the Forums aren't really as you describe. And I agree with you on the subject of simple RP pages, quoting myself "Nobody needs their hands held when they're roleplaying". --Arch-Mage Matt Did I Do That? 00:12, 4 September 2010 (UTC)
I know it's usually discouraged, but given that we're pretty much talking in circles, and I don't see any major objections to any approach, would anybody object if we just put this to a vote? Once we've nailed down for certain what solution we're using, then we can hammer out the specifics of how. – Robin Hood↝talk 02:45, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

(←) Nephele would have to say for sure, but I found more similarities with her proposal and our Fanfiction articles than our Mods articles. She'd also have to back this up, but let me see if I can break down her suggestion and make it a little clearer:

  1. All of the current RPs are put up for "adoption".
  2. RP sections are adopted by editors that volunteer to maintain them. They are moved from content-space into user-space and categorized. They are completely user-owned articles. Any editor can adopt any number of articles.
  3. Any that aren't adopted after a pre-determined amount of time are proposed for deletion.
  4. The main roleplaying article is edited to hold a very basic description of what roleplaying is and how to develop ideas of your own, becoming even smaller than it is now. Instead of listing every user-space article, the main roleplaying page will simply link to the category.
  5. Like fanfictions, the user-owned RP articles are uneditable by other editors unless the adopter specifically states that they welcome editing. Otherwise, editors can make suggestions on the talk pages. Sure, some editors may like to add/change things, but they aren't be able to, and I think that'll be fine. The whole point of this conversation and project is that it's not wiki-type material, and we shouldn't try to treat it as such.
  6. The only maintenance that is necessary is making sure that the user-owned articles are properly categorized.

I'd definitely prefer to see these articles go away, but I don't see that passing community consensus, so this seems like the next best thing. And AMM: I know how you feel, believe me; I did at least as much work as you just did cleaning these articles up a while back, but it's quite clear that they just don't belong here. I would definitely prefer to see the RP suggestions as forum posts instead, but since that doesn't look likely, either, this is the best solution I've seen. --GKtalk2me 03:26, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

Wrap Up (Edit break 2)

This sounds fairly good. The only problem is that if we link to them from the article in wiki-space it's still in the wiki and thus it reflects badly on us if we include thing in that category like "Mage's should go kill lotz of stuf with magik kuz thats what mages du". I think that we should have a subcategory ("Oblivion-Roleplaying-Ideas-Suitable-For-Main-Site" Is a bit long though. Any ideas for a name.) that would be handled by Userspace Patrollers. I have some thoughts on the rules for handling that but I'll write them up in the morning.--TheAlbinoOrcany_questions? 07:35, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

This has been going on for a while now, and so I have created a page with my vision of how it should look (based upon GK and Nephele's suggestions). Basically, it works almost exactly like the Fanfiction page, where you can include a link to your Roleplaying Ideas page under the appropriate section. I've also created a User:Roleplaying Example to serve as an example of how it should be done. The example hasn't been implemented yet because the template I suggested ({{Roleplaying Ideas|Name of Roleplay|My Username|Optional summary of submission.}}) hasn't been created yet. The template will include a link to the user's Roleplaying Ideas page, the name of their idea (which they must put in sections, as detailed here. That means the template must be able to link the appropriate sections), and the user name. The example's roleplaying ideas page will include one of each roleplay character type variation (as in, one variation of assassin and one variation of fighter). Other users can expand upon these on their own RI pages or come up with their own. My concept may seem a little confusing, so any questions or comments? -- Jplatinum16 14:49, 4 September 2010 (UTC)
A large part of what I have to say boils down to what GK said -- in particular regarding using Fanfiction as a starting point. But having already started to write this all down, here are all the gory details:
Allowed edits to userspace pages
  • My thought was that we should have a template used on userspace pages to tell everyone what level of editing was acceptable. I previously put together a first draft of the template at Template:Editing Allowed.
  • Assuming that basic idea is acceptable, we're still left with what to do if a user hasn't added an Editing Allowed template.
    • We could continue to assume that any untagged user pages are off limits to anyone except the editor.
    • Or we could make it so that all roleplaying content is implicitly open to some level of editing -- unless explicitly stated otherwise by the owner. For example, we could add an |editing= option to the Roleplaying template (defaulting to editing=all) which automatically adds the Editing Allowed template to RP pages.
  • If a page is marked as un-editable and somebody wants to modify the idea then they would have to create their own copy of the page. (Or else ask the original user for permission to make changes, or post suggestions on the talk page, etc.) So if Josh doesn't want anyone touching his Paladin article, then we'd end up with multiple Paladin articles.
  • However, we probably do want to make a general exception, allowing edits to tags such as the {{Roleplaying}} tag and its contents, regardless of the user's Editing Allowed preference. In particular, I think that other community members should be able to make changes to the categories. One justification for this exception is that such edits would not affect the page contents, but would affect category pages which are still essentially under community control.
Patrolling
  • Regardless of whether or not we add userspace patrollers, I was assuming that existing standards for userspace patrolling would continue (and, in fact, this is one of the key reasons why moving the content to the userspace makes any difference relative to existing practice). In other words, for an edit to be marked as patrolled it basically just has to be made by someone who is allowed to edit the page, and the edit can't break site policy (no copyright violations, no personal insults, etc.).
  • I think there should be absolutely no expectation that patrollers are responsible for any type of cleanup -- spelling, grammar, whatever -- even if the original editor has stated that the content can be edited.
Quality
  • Once the content is in the userspace, I do not think that its quality reflects on UESP overall. There's already a quality warning on the first draft of the category pages, which can be expanded if anyone thinks it's necessary. Beyond that, userspace RP articles would have the same effect on the site overall as fanfiction (all of which are listed on a wikispace page), or as existing userpages -- which vary in quality just as widely as RP articles ever will.
  • The quality of the RP pages is likely to go down overall. However, my impression is that most of the people who contribute roleplaying ideas and most of the people who read the roleplaying ideas would prefer a wide-open range of ideas regardless of quality, rather than a tightly controlled, limited, but higher quality set of ideas.
  • I don't think we have any way to prevent a user from adding non-ES or console-based roleplaying ideas to a user page (and we never have). Furthermore, as in my previous point, there clearly are some editors and readers who want such content.
  • I personally would think that such non-ES/console ideas probably belong in separate categories. Overall, however, I think that details of how to categorize/organize the content should be left up to editors with an actual interest in roleplaying ideas. In other words, given that I personally am unlikely to ever read a RP page, I don't think my opinion on such details should matter.
  • Long-term there are probably even some ways to handle particularly poor-quality RPs, even in the userspace. For example, if enough editors agree (e.g., on a talk page), an RP idea could be tagged as "low quality", in which case the ideas would be moved to a separate category. (Editors could also vote on the best RP ideas, for that matter). Perhaps if an RP article hasn't been modified in xx months, it automatically gets downgraded to an out-of-date category. However, I don't think that it makes sense to hammer out the details before we even have any content -- and again, it should be up to editors who use the pages.
Existing pages
  • In terms of the existing Roleplaying content, my thought was that as part of the "adoption" process, we would eventually get rid of all of the existing roleplaying subpages -- the individual sections would all be moved to the userspace, or else deleted if nobody adopted that section.
  • For those subpages with more general introductory sections, the introduction might best be moved to the appropriate category page (e.g., Category:User_Content-Oblivion-Roleplaying-Fighter, etc.)
  • I personally think that Oblivion:Roleplaying itself should be kept out of the userspace, primarily because it is a community effort -- it's not just a series of individually-written sections. And overall it seems to get fewer unwanted edits. Perhaps it would need to be permanently semi-protected -- and we probably would want to make it clear that any additions to "Specific Character Ideas" or other unwanted content added to the page will be immediately deleted.
Why not delete it all
  • One critical point is that we essentially have no way to prevent people from adding these ideas to their user pages. Users have always been free to add whatever they wanted to the userspace. Ultimately the whole move-to-userspace just amounts to advertising an existing capability more visibly -- and adding some tags/categorization so people who want to find the content can.
  • More idealistically, however, I think that UESP should be a resource for the entire Elder Scrolls community -- so if there are members of the community who want to share roleplaying ideas, I think we should explore how to facilitate that, instead of shutting them out. Making entire topics taboo on UESP will just force ES players to set up a site somewhere else to share those topics. At that point, UESP has lost community members, has lost readers, and (for those who care solely about the bottom line) has lost advertising revenue, meaning we not might be able to afford future hardware upgrades, new servers, etc. Pushing people away from UESP could even promote the growth of other wikis (especially after TESV comes out).
  • The central idea behind moving RP content to the userspace is to get it out of everyone else's hair. My hope is that doing so addresses the community-wide issues related to roleplaying -- it is no longer "official" UESP content that reflects on the overall site; it is no longer the patrollers' or other editors' responsibility to clean it up. If it's possible to make it so that disinterested editors can just ignore the roleplaying pages, then I don't see any reason to disallow it.
  • I think promoting userspace content will increase the number of active UESP editors, even outside of the userspace. Starting out as a new editor on UESP can be downright intimidating -- we've probably all seen comments such as "everything's been written" or "there's nothing I could do on the site". Promoting userspace content gives people a chance to learn about wiki editing and learn generally about how the site works, in a much more forgiving atmosphere than the rest of the site. Many of those editors might never make an edit outside of the userspace. But I'd bet some of them will get wiki-addicted just like all of us, and will expand to help elsewhere on the site. Or they'll at least know about previews and edit summaries when they do make occasional fix-it edits elsewhere on the site.
In response specifically to Jplatinum16's sandbox ideas, I'm a bit confused by several details.
  • Why should users have to explicitly add a link to their idea on the page? Categories (e.g., Category:User_Content-Oblivion-Roleplaying) can take care of that automatically. (And I think that's one detail of the fanfiction pages that should be redone, too).
  • Why should users have to put all of their roleplaying ideas on a single page? I think that should be one option for how to organize ideas, but I don't think it should be the only option.
--NepheleTalk 16:27, 4 September 2010 (UTC)
I had completely forgotten about the Category idea, and I have changed my sandbox accordingly. Now the page serves as a viewing hub for users and non-users to see roleplaying ideas. I've included ten roles for now to be adopted. I still think that users should put their ideas on one page, which would limit the amount of pages to be created, and make it easier for ptrollers. -- Jplatinum16 18:21, 4 September 2010 (UTC)
(edit conflict) I'm beginning to regret resurrecting this thread in some ways :), but I'm glad we're moving forward on this.
Jplatinum16: I think your idea for how a RP Ideas Category page should look is a great start.
Nephele (et al): I can see the benefit of putting Roleplaying into Category pages, and it occurred to me that FanFiction could probably be done that way as well. But would a <catpagetemplate> be able to handle a summary line, or would we have to simplify it (like the current Roleplay categories appear)? I'll play and see what I can get out of it, but as the designer of catpagetemplate, you'll probably have a better idea of what can be done here.
Also, I like Neph's idea of highlighting certain articles, but I think we're better off flipping it around and having "Featured Roleplays", to highlight the really good ones. Editors may be rather discouraged by having their roleplay tagged as "low quality". :) – Robin Hood↝talk 18:27, 4 September 2010 (UTC)
I've added summaries and a bunch of test entries to some of our Roleplaying entries. You can see examples on any of the roleplaying category pages. What do people think of the general idea, and specifically the formatting now that there's a bunch of entries in place? Note that for the moment, you can't actually add these with the "real" Roleplaying template; if people like the general idea, it's an easy addition to the Roleplaying template. Also note that if users try hard enough, and know what they're doing, they'll be able to add HTML formatting to the title, summary, or anything else. I just tried it, and the formatting actually looked so awful, I reverted it. We'll want to keep an eye out for that, or strip HTML from the input (if that's possible...I don't remember), and probably trim overly-long entries too.
Wandering off-topic slightly, the Fanfiction page could be moved to a Category page and done similarly, though unless Nephele can astound me once again (which she does on a fairly frequent basis, actually), I think we'd have to give up at least some of the formatting found on the current page if it went into a category. – Robin Hood↝talk 19:46, 4 September 2010 (UTC)
I missed just a bit (Sarcastically as possibly possible), it seems. I haven't fully read everything yet but in short, Jplatinum's idea looks good. --Arch-Mage Matt Did I Do That? 19:51, 4 September 2010 (UTC)
Just a quick note: while RH was adding summaries to the individual Roleplaying entries, I was messing about with subcategory summaries (and I'll probably still be making some tweaks). So basically, there are a couple of different things being tested on the category pages, each of which can be undone/modified/etc separately. As for the fanfiction pages, it should be possible to put together a category with most of what the existing page has. The biggest "issue" is making wiki-style formatting possible for cattextpost/cattextpre -- which isn't difficult, I just hadn't bothered to realize before that the category text isn't being wikified by default. --NepheleTalk 20:20, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

Wrap Up (Edit break 3)

(←) (Probably the largest edit conflict ever) Well here are the rules I said I'd write up. I'm not sure it matters anymore but whatever.

  1. Any user can nominate any roleplay for inclusion. However there must be at least a two-out-of-three vote by Userspace Patrollers for it to be included.
  2. If a nomination for inclusion is not accepted by the owner of the nominated page within two weeks the nomination is void.
  3. If no Userspace Patrollers vote on a nomination the nomination is void unless there is overwhelming support which is herein defined as twelve unopposed or more votes of support.
  4. All entries must be reviewed by at least three Userspace Patroller at least once a month. If this review is unfavorable then there must be at least a two-out-of-three vote by previously non-affiliated Userspace Patrollers to keep the entry.--TheAlbinoOrcany_questions? 21:05, 4 September 2010 (UTC)
UPs aren't even officialized yet and no one is a UP yet, so we would need to wait on that. And by inclusion do you mean being put with the 'official' ones? --Arch-Mage Matt Did I Do That? 21:12, 4 September 2010 (UTC)
(e/c) This... is turning into some kind of nightmare. We've now got an intricate system of templates and categories, with which new users are expected to familiarise themselves; systems of votes for high- and low-quality ideas, systems of editing restrictions, and who knows how many other systems for dealing with systems. And now the same ideas are being suggested for fanfics - an area that has managed by itself perfectly well both before and after it was moved to userspace.
Nephele said: "The central idea behind moving RP content to the userspace is to get it out of everyone else's hair" but I'm sorry, I don't think that's going to happen here. There is no way the sort of editor who typically edits roleplaying articles is going to manage to deal with all this stuff. It's going to come down to admins, patrollers, and other editors who have been around a while, and doing a hand-wave to pass it off to userspace patrollers is another way of saying that nobody really gives a damn about this content.
I don't believe it's true that deleting the roleplaying content is going to stop UESP getting the hardware it needs in the future. We've deleted vast sections before - Custom Classes, Gripes, Mod Ideas and Things to Do When You're Bored are four hugely popular sections that spring to mind - and I don't see a catastrophic drop in activity that is down to anything but the games becoming a few months older.
If the goal of this idea is to stop people from editing by making it too complicated for them to understand how, then I don't think that will work either. Instead, expect to see people ignoring edit restrictions, posting new ideas on existing pages, putting things into the wrong category, copy-pasting and generally making a total pig's ear of this whole system.
I don't believe this kind of system is suitable for a wiki-style environment. Despite the many problems with the current set-up, I'd prefer that, but my vote would still go to deleting the whole damn lot and telling people to use a forum.
I have real work that I want to do on this site. All I see coming out of this userspace move is a mess, and a mess that will distract me and other editors from making edits that will really, truly improve UESP. rpeh •T•C•E• 21:24, 4 September 2010 (UTC)
I don't see such a big problem. I mean, we've already got a button that'll insert the appropriate template onto the appropriate page. It may need some tweaking once we finalize everything, but the basic concept is already there - all the user has to do is fill in the blanks. Yes, categorization may be a bit more of an issue, but I think the UPs can cover that off reasonably well, and it's nowhere near as much work to edit a category as it is to review an entire submission. As it is, Roleplaying is often left unpatrolled, and I think Userfying would be a huge improvement. At least by flagging it as user content, the regular Patrollers can patrol it as such and move on, and if the Userspace Patrollers take care of it before we get there, so much the better!
Worst case scenario, it turns out to have been a bad idea and we Prod the whole mess and move on. Best case scenario, users find it inviting, easy-to-use, and we introduce a bunch of users to a simplified version of patrolling, with the possibility of attracting them to the larger version of it. – Robin Hood↝talk 23:37, 4 September 2010 (UTC)
No one's forcing you to participate in this discussion rpeh, so if you have more important matters to take part of on the site then feel free to do so. I also seriously doubt that deleting the RP pages will cause a serious uproar, but we tried to delete it before and that didn't work, and so we can at least make it easier. The setup is basically all here (with some tweaks of course), as detailed on my sandbox. Users make their pages like with fanfiction: their ideas are free to be seen by anyone. How difficult is it to create a page and write something? It most likely can be more clarified to make it easier for newer users. Obviously some people give "a damn about this content", otherwise we wouldn't be having this discussion. What are your thoughts about the plan already thought up (a.k.a. my sandbox)? Is it really too difficult to follow? Do you see any future problems with it? I like the plan; one of the benefits is less IP addresses and more users, and of course we won't have those many unpatrolled edits. Can we discuss the sandbox right now, as it seems to include what we've established. -- Jplatinum16 03:05, 5 September 2010 (UTC)
We're getting back to that rut again. I'm sure many people are getting sick of this - I say we put JP's, RH's. and Nephele's combined recent work up for a vote - soon, before we forget what we were talking about.
On that topic, I would vote for it to go that way. --Arch-Mage Matt Did I Do That? 03:17, 5 September 2010 (UTC)
Jplatinum, you've missed the whole point of my post. It's easy to have this discussion between a group of editors who have been around for a long time, but the only time any of us edit the RP pages is to fix links and spelling. The system has to be usable by new users with limited or no experience of wiki editing. For a new editor, creating a page and writing something is very difficult. I say nobody gives a damn about the content because this entire discussion is aimed at finding a way of moving it to a place where edits can be safely ignored. Are you really saying that you will start reading the roleplaying discussion. Once again I will quote Nephele: "The central idea behind moving RP content to the userspace is to get it out of everyone else's hair" so I think I'm fully justified in saying what I said.
FWIW, I think your sandbox looks great but I don't think it will work. It doesn't matter how detailed the instructions are, a lot of people simply won't read them. As a simple example, we have a big, bold headline at the bottom of each page, under which users are asked to sign their talk page posts. How many times in a typical day to people simply ignore that?
I could well be wrong. This might all work beautifully, and result in a fantastic, brave new world of wonderful roleplays always appearing in the right place, with no problems. If so, I will be very grateful for the new way of doing things. Moving roleplays out of Oblivion space is a great idea because it means we don't need to recreate anything for TES V (or Morrowind for that matter).
As for ignoring the discussion, I had fully intended to do so and only came back when a hideous, overblown bureaucracy started to emerge, involving votes for good or bad pages, systems of highlighting and god knows what else. While I honestly do not care what eventually happens to these pages, I feel I should always warn people when they're gamboling joyfully towards the edge of a cliff. rpeh •T•C•E• 07:46, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

Is this stuff really worth fighting for? Its just a page where ppl put game ideas on how to expand the gaming experiance. I enjoyed the fun stuff to do when your bored page and you guys deleted that. Actually the new roleplaying pages look crappy and dumb.Yes,offense to whoever did that. We all had voices on that page and we came up with our own ideas as long as we followed some guidelines. And besides this whole discussion is probaly between 5 ppl i didnt vote for who legitimateely rule this website.This entire discussion is just idiocracy and i perphaps you could set is so that it automatically sets as an minor-edit so patrollers wont be bothered in their eternal quest to standardize things.and yes i didnt sign it just to spite you. — Unsigned comment by Kinvalor75 (talk • contribs) on 5 September 2010

We're trying to do this SO everyone can express their opinions and ideas while at the same time patrollers and admins do not need to worry about it being in the Oblivion content. The current versions are much better content wise - it no longer hurts anyone's eyes to read it. And no, almost no one followed the guidlines for the Roleplaying pages. They used first person, horrid spelling, and repeated ideas. With the new Roleplaying style, you can do all that and no one will give a damn. --Arch-Mage Matt Did I Do That? 16:21, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

Proposal for New Roleplaying System

You're right rpeh, this has been spiraling out of control, which was part of my reason of butting into the discussion. I want this to be over with as much as anybody else. To bring this to a close I suggest we at least try it. Like you said, this could either be something people completely ignore, or a system where everything works out perfectly (or close to perfect). If it doesn't work out, we delete the new categories, and unlock the roleplay pages and see where it takes us from there. But can we first try this new system, and let it sink or swim? We already have the proposal: users create their own roleplaying idea pages where they list their own character types. The types show up in the Roleplaying categories. Users can make up their own ideas, or copy some from the old roleplay subpages (the subpages are temporary. Users who want to keep them put it on their own pages). Then here is the vote:

  • The contents of my sandbox get moved into the user space as the page Oblivion:Roleplaying Ideas
  • The current Roleplaying page gets unprotected and gets this message put above it. The roleplaying page is now just a regular page which anybody can edit.
  • The subpages remain protected and get this message put above it.
  • Assuming we get Userspace patrollers up and running, they will watch the roleplaying edits (as well as normal patrollers). All they look for is any vandalism, personal attacks, and profanity. They will also see if any user is struggling trying to set up their Roleplaying Ideas page.
  • We give the system three months after the official launch. In this three months, we let it take place. The system will be deleted if the following requirements aren't met:
  1. There aren't at least 10-15 5 users using this new system at the end of the three months,
  2. There are 15-25 15 unresolved complaints and/or problems involving the system by the end of the three months (problems include users having difficulty using the system, and users making random roleplaying sections everywhere but their roleplaying pages). Vandalism does not count, and the complaints must be from 15-25 15 different users.
  3. There are a combination of 25 resolved and unresolved complaints and/or problems involving the system.
  4. There are more than 50 unpatrolled edits to the these new user pages by the end of the 3 months.
  • If the system passes this test, then the roleplaying subpages are deleted and we keep using the system.

I think this is a reasonable request. If the system breaks rule number 3 before the 3 months, it's apparent that the system is too flawed to serve any further. If anyone has any additional requirements for the system, feel free to comment.

Changes: To address GK's excellent points, there have been some changes to the requirements. The number of users who need to be using the system is now 5; the reason behind this being that we want to know that the system is usable and not too difficult to follow. I've also changed the complaint requirement to 15 unresolved problems. A new added requirement is that there can't be a combination of 25 complaints/problems with the system: if there is that many problems, we know it isn't working.

Votes

  • Support: - as system nominator. -- Jplatinum16 18:31, 5 September 2010 (UTC)
  • Support: with the proviso for #2 that the complaints come from multiple users and that vandalism and/or any suspicion of gaming the system are discounted. Otherwise the system could be deliberately failed quite easily. – Robin Hood↝talk 19:01, 5 September 2010 (UTC)
    • Question: What's User:Roleplaying Ideas about? I don't think we really need a dummy user here; this should just be part of Oblivion space, or perhaps General if we're going for more than just Oblivion roleplays. User space should really just be for individual users. – Robin Hood↝talk 19:06, 5 September 2010 (UTC)
Oops, the User thing was my bad. We'll keep it in the Oblivion namespace for the system test. -- Jplatinum16 19:17, 5 September 2010 (UTC)
Short of the nuclear option, this is probably the best way of handling things. I will pray to Talos that it works. rpeh •T•C•E• 19:42, 5 September 2010 (UTC)
  • Support: It is definitely worth a shot. Good work, JPlatinum16! --Krusty 19:47, 5 September 2010 (UTC)
  • Extremely Weak Support – Too much bureaucracy. I prefer having these pages in the Userspace, so they can be individualized and so other users won't interfere with another person's ideas. I don't like the idea of other users telling other users how they should play. This is bound to cause more arguing and certain users will use the new rules to "game the system". I will the game is best played when user come up with their own ways to play. UESP shouldn't dictate how users play. --Michaeldsuarez (Talk) (Deeds) 23:23, 5 September 2010 (UTC)
  • Comment It's not so much 'dictating' as it is suggesting. --Arch-Mage Matt Did I Do That? 00:17, 6 September 2010 (UTC)
    • You know as well as I do that some some people take wikis a little seriously. Although the articles are meant to show a way of doing things, some people will believe that these pages are meant to be the way of doing things. --Michaeldsuarez (Talk) (Deeds) 00:53, 6 September 2010 (UTC)
      • But that's really their own problem, if they complain to that extent we'll tell them that. --Arch-Mage Matt Did I Do That? 01:00, 6 September 2010 (UTC)
        • And that's why I chose "weak support" instead of "weak oppose". I'm certain that the Patrollers will do the job granted to them, but my concern is with the average, inexperienced (and sometimes stubborn) user. --Michaeldsuarez (Talk) (Deeds) 01:15, 6 September 2010 (UTC)
  • Comment Are there even 15-20 people using the current system ? If not I think it's kind of unfair to expect more people than already use the RP pages to use this new system.--TheAlbinoOrcany_questions? 00:24, 6 September 2010 (UTC)
The 15-20 users consist of IPs and users who've edited and read the old pages, and maybe even users who have never even looked at the RP pages. I think it's fair enough, considering the chance of failure of the system. -- Jplatinum16 00:51, 6 September 2010 (UTC)
  • Comment How long will this voting process go on? If the answer is two weeks I think I'll faint. :) --Arch-Mage Matt Did I Do That? 01:00, 6 September 2010 (UTC)
    • Does WP:Snowball apply to UESP? Disclaimer: I'm not saying that it should, especially since this is the first day of voting. --Michaeldsuarez (Talk) (Deeds) 01:20, 6 September 2010 (UTC)
MDS: It's been used on UESP before, so I suspect it could be used in this case as well.
Matt: Typical time is about a week, but if there are no major flaws pointed out and everybody seems to be supporting the idea, I suspect we could wrap it up before then as MDS suggests. – Robin Hood↝talk 01:53, 6 September 2010 (UTC)
Thanks. I'm just making sure that the voting process doesn't end prematurely. --Michaeldsuarez (Talk) (Deeds) 02:12, 6 September 2010 (UTC)
  • Admin Request Can I request that the message currently on top of the roleplaying pages now read- "This page is temporarily locked until this discussion is resolved. In particular, a new system has been proposed for the roleplaying pages; anyone is free to vote on this proposal." This should make it easier for people who'd rather not read the whole discussion to know what's going on. -- Jplatinum16 02:24, 6 September 2010 (UTC)
Sounds reasonable. I'll change the notice on the pages. --Krusty 04:51, 6 September 2010 (UTC)
  • Support - A bit worried that it will screw up, but hey, we've at least gotta give a go! :) --SerCenKing Talk 08:59, 6 September 2010 (UTC)
  • Support Praying to Jygalag (Daedra Lord of Order) that this works out. What do we do if it doesn't though?--TheAlbinoOrcany_questions? 21:29, 6 September 2010 (UTC)
Get rid of the system first, then unlock everything. I guess everything will go back the way it was, unless another user proposes something else. -- Jplatinum16 21:52, 6 September 2010 (UTC)
Thinking it about the roleplaying pages might be more Sheogorath's sphere.--TheAlbinoOrcany_questions? 14:26, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
  • Weak OpposeSupport - Most of this proposal makes perfect sense to me. My few concerns have to do with details. I think the details need to be ironed out before we implement.
    1: I've sandboxed a version of the Roleplaying article that seems to be appropriate as this goes live. It makes a few large-scale changes, including a little bit of explanation on the new system and some links. I also trimmed the suggestions down, eliminating anything that wasn't general enough (more specific things can go on users' pages).
    2: "At least 10-15 users using this system"? What? What if it's twelve? It should really be a set number, and though I don't like saying "we have to have this many people using it", I'd rather see it at ten.
    3: "There is 15-25 complaints and/or problems"? Again, what? What if there's twenty? On this one, though, if in three months we have fifteen legitimate complaints or issues, it's obviously not working. So, I'd go with fifteen.
    4: "If the system breaks rule number 2 before the 3 months, it's over, and we return to what we've been dealing with." I don't like this concept. Problems may come up that we'll be able to resolve, so I'd rather say that: if at the end of the three months, there's fifteen or more valid and legitimate issues that we don't have a solution for, then it would be time to consider other alternatives.
    If and when these details are clarified, I'll change my vote to "Support". Since my concerns have been addressed, I fully support this proposal. --GKtalk2me 18:54, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
  • Weak Oppose Support I agree with the points GK brought up. Also why should there be 15-20 people using it before three months for it to continue?Now that that's done let's move it!--TheAlbinoOrcany_questions? 19:22, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
JP possibly could have meant by three months, but even that nuber is a bit high. --Arch-Mage Matt Did I Do That? 19:24, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
I also support GK's suggestions. I can see why the ranges were given—not to lock it down to specific numbers if we don't feel the system is working—but probably just using the smallest number should be adequate. And her last point about solutions that we can resolve is definitely a good one. Can I suggest we change the original points so we don't get a snowball effect of Opposes over a few guideline tweaks? – Robin Hood↝talk 23:08, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
I don't get the "What if it's twelve" question. 10-15 covers 12. It also covers 11, 13, and 14. I'm probably tired and missing something obvious, though... --Arch-Mage Matt Did I Do That? 23:13, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
Yeah, that took me a second to figure out too. She means, what if instead of being higher than 15, it's a borderline number like 12. If you have 12 with a rule like "at least 10-15", did you make the requirement or not? Better to have a definitive number. – Robin Hood↝talk 23:19, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
TAO and AMM: y'all were right, the number of people was high. The reason that was a requirement is because I wanted to know that at least some users would be able to use the system without difficulty.
GK: the details have been officially ironed. I was hoping you would give your expert opinion. -- Jplatinum16 00:57, 9 September 2010 (UTC)
  • Oppose: The high threshold was part of the original proposal and one reason why I voted to support. I object to the terms of the vote being changed after several votes have already been cast. rpeh •T•C•E• 19:04, 9 September 2010 (UTC)
  • Comment: Actually, I'm striking this vote too. I really don't like the way the issue under discussion was changed during the vote, but I'm going back to my original analysis of "I don't care about this". I don't patrol existing roleplays and I won't be patrolling them in the future so I'm going to leave this to people who give a damn. I've made my concerns clear, which is all I can do. rpeh •T•C•E• 10:28, 10 September 2010 (UTC)
  • Oppose: I agree with what Michael has to say. Ninja Hinder 22:47, 12 September 2010 (UTC)
  • Comment: About a week and a half has passed and the results are clear: Only one oppose when almost every active user who has contibuted to this long mess have voted. Since the RP Ideas are already up and running, I suggest we close the voting. It seems obvious everyone's solveable questions/problems have been fixed and users are already using the new system. --Arch-Mage Matt Did I Do That? 23:14, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

Final Wrap-Up

We are almost right back to where we started with: a problem that's not getting any solution. The only difference is that we have what we're planning on doing. No one has seemed to oppose the procedure of the system, only the details of how we should test the system. The details of this "test drive" are currently too specific to be agreed upon, and maybe even too specific for the system to accurately succeed the test drive. The three things no one has opposed include:

  • The system setup,
  • The amount of time to give the system for testing (three months),
  • That the system does need testing before being our permanent solution.

And for that reason, the test drive should be a whole different discussion, and preferably a discussion for another day. It's time to start taking action. After looking over the system tonight, I will make the system go live tomorrow. That includes moving the contents of my sandbox to Oblivion:Roleplaying Ideas, adding the messages stated above to their appropriate page, and replacing the roleplaying page with the one set in GK's sandbox. In one month, we can check up on the system, looking for specific things like number of users using it, number of issues that have risen, etc. Then we can decide what requirements the system must meet to be permanent. I feel like if I don't do something now, we'll just keep going in circles -- Jplatinum16 01:09, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Sounds like a plan. Can I suggest you simply wipe out the current contents of {{RPtoUserspace}} and put in the message that'll appear on the various subpages. That way, if there's a mistake or we decide to change the wording in the future, we only have to change it in one place. – Robin Hood↝talk 02:36, 10 September 2010 (UTC)
Okay, JP fixed the template and sent Roleplaying Ideas live, and I've now added the template to Roleplaying and its subpages and sent my version of the article live. We'll pick this back up in a few months, to evaluate how it's progressed. --GKtalk2me 18:43, 15 September 2010 (UTC)
Can you remove, or at least change, the "Quality" tag on them? Because they are not heavily edited anymore... --Arch-Mage Matt Did I Do That? 19:24, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

Didn't somebody call this system too complex? Just as well they don't like saying I told you so. rpeh •T•C•E• 18:50, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

I would suggest protecting that template, since it's likely to become widely used. It seems a rather odd edit, actually, considering that the user had already created his own Roleplaying Ideas page, but however he did it, protection would solve the problem in any event. – Robin Hood↝talk 18:59, 16 September 2010 (UTC)
Protected roleplaying pages, protected templates... let's fully protect the whole thing and allow only admins to add roleplaying suggestions. It's quite clear nobody is really interested in this problem. rpeh •T•C•E• 19:07, 16 September 2010 (UTC)
I've protected the template. --GKtalk2me 21:04, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

Deletion Review

I've previously said the only solution is to delete the roleplaying pages, and rather than snipe from the sidelines I've decided to put the pages forward for Deletion Review. Since the main page is locked, I can't add the template. Please can an admin either add the {{deletionreview}} template to Oblivion:Roleplaying, unless everybody agrees that this notification is sufficient. rpeh •T•C•E• 19:44, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

I've added the deletion review template. --GKtalk2me 21:06, 16 September 2010 (UTC)
Pssst. It's linking to the wrong review! rpeh •T•C•E• 21:14, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

Interim Change

Due to a bit of a problem in the system, I'm proposing a small change. It made more sense to mention it there, but I thought I'd also link to it from here for those who are watching this page. – Robin Hood↝talk 05:36, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Test Drive Review

Okay, it's been three months (minus roughly one day), since JPlatinum16 "finalized" the time by posting the concensus. What do you think? I'm sorry if some of the users that were active in the original discussion aren't currently active (RH specifically, said recently that he's focusing on other projects and will be gone for some time.), but the rest of us aren't and this is something that should be finalized. Also the specific one in question is still checking back from time to time so he should catch this or the message on his talk page. Anyway, the details (Fear not Argonians and Khajiits!) of this "test drive" are, in a nutshell:


"We give the system three months after the official launch. In this three months, we let it take place. Done.

The system will be deleted if the following requirements aren't met:

1. There aren't at least 5 users using this new system at the end of the three months,
2. There are 15 unresolved complaints and/or problems involving the system by the end of the three months (problems include users having difficulty using the system, and users making random roleplaying sections everywhere <i>but</i> their roleplaying pages). Vandalism does not count, and the complaints must be from 15 different users.
3. There are a combination of 25 resolved and unresolved complaints and/or problems involving the system.
4. There are more than 50 unpatrolled edits to the these new user pages by the end of the 3 months."

Again, what do you think? Has: A. the system performed properly under these rules? And, B. In your personal opinion, do you feel that it is worth keeping this system whether or not it has met the requirements?--Ghurhak gro-Demril or TAOYes? 17:12, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

As a side-note to start this off, if that makes any sense, I changed your indented text to a Pre template so that it would wrap properly for #2. Also, I find it amusing that you were worried about me not responding, yet barring any edit conflicts, I'll be the first. That's entirely because of your post to my talk page, which I get e-mails for.
Right off the bat, #1 is not an issue. I counted 17 users, not including the example user. Number 4 is also not an issue—I did a quick check, and I don't see any unpatrolled edits for roleplaying pages at all. Judging the other two is a little more difficult, but my impression is that neither of them are concerns either. There were certainly a few issues with the design at first, especially when we were "encouraging" users to edit the template itself, but I believe those were all worked out. There have been a few minor formatting or categorization issues, but that's one of the reasons we created User-space patrollers, and I think that system is working out quite well.
The only suggestion I have as part of a follow-up would be to make Category:User_Content-Oblivion-Roleplaying a little more prominent on some of the relevant pages. I had a hard time finding it, and I knew what I was looking for! People who are just exploring might not find it at all. – Robin Hood↝talk 23:07, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
Sorry for being late! It looks the system has met the following requirements, and I agree with Robin Hood that the roleplaying category should be further seen. In my opinion, the roleplaying ideas system has worked wonderfully in decreasing some of the nonsense seen before (even though the system had its kinks). If no one opposes, the next step would be for an admin to delete the subpages, unprotect the Roleplaying page, and for me to make the relevant changes on the Roleplaying Ideas page. -- Jplatinum16 20:09, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
Sounds good to me, also. Should we give people some time to adopt sections/announce what it is that we're doing with it?--Ghurhak gro-Demril or TAOYes? 00:29, 15 December 2010 (UTC)
I think a "last chance" warning of a week or two would probably be appropriate, but I wouldn't make it anything long-term. Mostly, people who wanted to preserve the ideas have already done so. – Robin Hood↝talk 19:37, 15 December 2010 (UTC)
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