Talk:AdminBlog

Feel free to add comments about the latest entries of the Admin Blog here.

General Discussion

What is the official stance on using other people's code? I never see anyone give credit and it doesn't seem like anyone cares. -- Sterga 23:48, 12 May 2014 (MST)

Generally, a wiki is supposed to be a community project that grows by users working off of each other, and PDb isn't really much different in that regard, so it's something we only look at on a case by case basis if it's of concern to a particular user. There have been cases where people ask to use another's code (through talk pages and the like), and that's certainly encouraged. --Δ Epelesker (talk) 10:19, 13 May 2014 (MST)

It's painfully obvious when people use someone else's code and yet none of the admins or mods want to have an official stance on this behavior? If users were stealing other people's stories, I bet you'd have a different reply. Apparently, I'm the only person that actually knows how to code HTML and CSS that has a problem with people using other's code (especially mine) and not giving credit. And now I know that admins and mods aren't interested in promoting basic human decency when it comes to certain types of work. -- Sterga 15:31, 13 May 2014 (MST)

Uhm...back in the day, the Page of the month contest required us to give reasons why a page was being nominated. Is this still a rule? [[Leroyswish|@leroyswish]] (talk) 18:41, 8 April 2014 (MST)

Sorry for taking too long to get back to you! People are more than welcome to give reasons for their nominations, but it isn't so much required anymore now that (due to the new rules) the final decision on which page gets featured is more in the hands of the moderators. --Δ Epelesker (talk) 10:19, 13 May 2014 (MST)

Do you want us to post from the top or the bottom? --Δ Epelesker (talk) 17:19, 24 September 2013 (MST)

Top should be the newest I think. Easier to see the newest stuff that way. -- Destructor (talk) 19:50, 24 September 2013 (MST)

I was tidying up some of the uncategorized pages and noted a lot of the "admin" pages including the AdminBlog were in that list. I have created a Category:Primus Database and moved what pages I could in there, however the AdminBlog, Main Page and PoTM are not editable by members. Could one of the admins with edit permissions add the category please. Liath (talk) 18:32, 4 February 2014 (MST)

PotM Discussion (8th October 2013)

Tuesday, February 4th, 2014 @leroyswish (Talk): So, it was inevitable this would happen. Every month, it's a popularity contest. Regardless of how a page looks or feels, it's based on the voting of friends or SG mates. Is there anything else we can do?

Yes, I realize I was horrible and didn't really elaborate much on what exactly our positions were in the backroom discussion we had. I'd rather let the mods speak for themselves here, rather than attempt to paint the entire picture on my own.

My personal reason for bringing up the discussion is that I feel that the public vote system, as it is now, has its flaws: from some comments that have appeared in recent months, there have been issues with results ending up skewed toward well-viewed pages owned by active members, and that articles that barely miss winning several months in a row get "pushed". --Δ Epelesker (talk) 17:41, 8 October 2013 (MST)

My thought was to eliminate the PotM entirely and introduce a Random Page of the Week. This would use the random page function to find a suitable page (meaning it is not 'empty' of information, and has no mature content, stuff like that) and post it on the main page for people to see. I think it is more fair, and provides publicity to pages people might otherwise never see. Another idea I had was to make the Page of the Month only allow these Random Pages of the Week. Meaning, you have to choose from the pages featured in the Random Page.--Maekada (talk) 22:16, 8 October 2013 (MST)

About the PotM thing - Mostly the trend I've seen was that all the voted-in folks had Art of some kind. Makes it difficult for some people (I'm including myself in this) to get any kind of recognition for pages they've spent a lot of time on. Just seems like having art done is like, a prerequisite for being voted in.-- 16:20, 8 October 2013 (MST)

I'm actually happy you brought this up for discussion because it's a point that I pretty much forgot about. I can see where it can be believed that there's an unwritten rule or a "pay to win" mentality where a page has to have commissioned artwork, but there really isn't such a thing. I can agree with you to a certain extent that pages with artwork (and extensive formatting) have a certain edge with the preference of voters, but it's not like we can disqualify those articles just because of it, or easily sway the public opinion to lean towards simpler articles. --Δ Epelesker (talk) 17:41, 8 October 2013 (MST)

Yea, I know you can't just be all "stop voting for pages with pretty arts". It's a fine line to walk I know, and I don't really have many ideas for a solution other than politely asking people to consider other pages.-- 09:37, 11 October 2013 (MST)

Hello, @leroyswish here. I was thinking the other night: What if the winners of POTM won an art commission?. I mean, not something TOTALLY outrageously priced, but just something. Asides form just "winning", we don't really have hopes for much. We all work insanely hard on our pages and maybe a great award is ready?
Also, what if we voted on all of the POTM past winners and chose one to rule them all? --@leroyswish (Talk) 18:00, 8 October 2013 (PST)

I can't really speculate on how feasible something like this could be at the moment. --Δ Epelesker (talk) 19:58, 8 October 2013 (MST)

Please leave the PoTM the way it is. There is no reason to change it now. If you want to do a Random Page of the Month or whatever, make it its own thing, but leave the PoTM as it is. More than likely, random page is how people FIND potential candidates for PoTM anyway, so it would be redundant to have two. I know I find some decent pages once in awhile when I hit the random page link. --@Reldin

Reldin, the majority of people likely look at who has already been nominated and vote for them. This is why we usually only have 1-2, maybe 3 candidates in total. Not to mention often the same minority of people VOTING to begin with. --Maekada (talk) 07:32, 9 October 2013 (MST)

So, what makes you think that's going to change then? If the same people are going to be voting, why bother changing the PoTM at all? It's not going to get more people interested in voting, it's more than likely going to turn a few people off from the whole thing. It just seems like there's more work trying to be done that won't change a thing. Keep it simple. If other folks really want to put their 2 cents into a vote, they can. Again, doing a revamp of the PoTM isn't going to change the minority because there isn't that many people that vote anyways to warrant the change from PoTM to this random page of the month stuff. --@Reldin

As much as I can vouch for Reldin making an effort to "find hidden gems" (remember that little line that used to be up at the top of PotM?), I have to agree with the trends that can be seen. Actually, I'll go one further: most of the people voting for, nominated, and successful in PotM are all people from CORP. We need to find a solution that allows more of the rest of the CO community to be represented without saying or implying "no, you can't vote like that". --Δ Epelesker (talk) 11:07, 9 October 2013 (MST)

The only solution you will find is going on the official forums and letting people know to vote for people's pages for PoTM, because we had a recent winner that WASN'T apart of the CORP community. If you want to get people from the rest of the CO community, you are going to need to be more active on other forums to get that interest in, otherwise you WILL see the same people from CORP voting on here. --@Reldin

The biggest issue I see is the steamrolling of candidates that don't win in a previous month. They'll just get nominated again and again until they finally DO win in the current system. The most obvious fix is putting in a rule that prevents any previous month's nominees from being entered in the next month's PotM contest - which has it's own set of 'unfairness' and problems. However, I think it is more beneficial to slap in that as at least a temporary fix to the problem. Unless you want to get incredibly draconian and come up with a very intensive set of rules and guidelines for it, there is no way to stop people from voting how they want. To some extent it will always be a popularity contest because it is by popular vote. Any 'change' to the system won't change much on who votes, because the vast majority of users on the site don't care about who wins the PotM, and that should be fine. Not everyone has to vote, only those that actually want to. And if they're voting for their friends, well. That's how the system works. In response to worries about active members being the winners most often - is that not the point? Nominating people who are actively still maintaining and updating their pages means that the winners will be around to see and appreciate the notoriety. I'd rather not be nominating dead pages. --Anubisgod

I can see a little of where you're coming from, but just because a page isn't constantly/currently updated doesn't necessarily mean that it ceases to be relevant or interesting, I think. --Δ Epelesker (talk) 11:59, 10 October 2013 (MST)

I agree with a lot of what Reldin said. More visibility of PRIMUS DB on the main forums and even some advertising in Zone Chat might get more people willing to come vote and even make their own pages. In the interest of what's happened in the past, CORP has a lot of winners because CORP started PDB. I am also very happy we're seeing a lot of great pages from people outside of CORP. Many probably had a presence over on VirtueVerse where I can say there was a massive amount of creativity in page layouts, effort and style. But I do like the format as it currently is. If the format is going to change it shouldn't be arbitrary and the community should have a vote on how they would like to see the voting changed. --FrozenViolet (talk) 14:42, 9 October 2013 (MST)

I totally agree, though if this a discussion for moderators, I can hop and skip out the door. I have noticed that same trend, people who are popular in CORP or active seem to be winning in POTM. It is always going to be a popularity contest, as Anubis said, it is a contest by popular vote. Yes, it seems kinda lame seeing the same people over and over again, and I think that's because the majority of POTM nominees are pages seen via POTM voting. elaboration: let's say I keep voting, and happen to vote for Stitch one day. As months go by, more people will probably see the page in the POTM, not anywhere else.
My point being, POTM voting seems very secluded and exclusive to certain individuals, and I hope this one day changes. --@leroyswish (Talk) 14:48, 9 October 2013 (PST)

Nope, we've purposefully brought this discussion public, so you're good. --Δ Epelesker (talk) 11:43, 10 October 2013 (MST)

Possibly an outrageous idea, but what if the only role of PDB users is to "bring pages to the moderator's attention", meaning every user can only have a single page voted on once. This gives you a selection of candidates the community put forth, all different and unique, but ultimately the moderators choose the winner. Multiple honourable mentions on one person can still indicate the popularity of a page / user, so the popularity factor can still be taken into account, but at the end of the month each page voted on would only be counted once. This eliminates the popularity aspect of the contest or at least no longer makes it a deciding factor, although in turn it does give the moderators a lot more influence. In a way the moderators are also representatives of the community though. Thoughts? --Feronius (Feronius) Feronius (talk) 06:48, 10 October 2013 (MST)

I think this is how Virtueverse did it back in the day, though it wasn't exactly a consistent thing. Don't take my word on that, though. --Δ Epelesker (talk) 11:46, 10 October 2013 (MST)

We're technically NOT representatives of the community. No one voted for us. If we keep Page of the Month, everyone should have a say in who wins.Maekada (talk) 07:37, 10 October 2013 (MST)

Agreed. Also, I've noticed PRIMUS also has a few written stories about heroes. Maybe we could have a SOTM? --@leroyswish (Talk) 7:39, 10 October 2013 (PST)

I was having a look at what extensions were available for mediawiki. It is entirely possible that one or more of these could allow the community to vote with clicks (or at least be used to highlight the pages which would be voted on directly for PotM). This may or may not be preferable to the current system but just putting them out there for consideration if adding extensions is possible.

    1) http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:Favorites 
    2) http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:CommunityVoice
    3) http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:ReaderFeedback
    4) http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:W4G_Rating_Bar

Each of the extensions has it's own pros and cons and may add additional functionality to the PDB outside their use for PotM discussions. (@Liath) 15:58, 10 Oct 2013 (GMT) (moved this to bottom as that seems to be what most are used to)

For me, PotM being largely a popularity contest devalues the honor of winning, especially when winners and nominations lack original content or have poor design. I was flatter to be nominated, appreciate the votes, and was surprised by some of them, but the only reason I was nominated at all was because I made a snide comment about winners being part of the BFF Club. Half of the votes between my page and Colosso were in the last two days and half of those were in the last two hours before voting ended. Yes, it was funny to see who could solicit the most votes at the last minute, but it's crappy and not uncommon. I like the click vote system that Liath suggested. Having a button on every page that lets anyone vote and gets rid of ridiculous crap like what happened between myself and Colosso (and between other pages). It's supposed to be Page of the Month, not Popularity contest of the Month. -- Sterga 09:45, 20 October 2013 (MST)

Anything with voting will always end up being a popularity contest. I agree with the "BFF" votes, even though people say it doesn't happen. It does happen. I always make sure to be one of the first voters though. What usually happens then is two or three other pages are nominated, and it ends up being between the small group. The nominees who don't win end up being voted for again next month and the next after that. I don't mean any disrespect, but the majority of voters who vote towards the 7th of each month (usually the last few days) pick the ones they see on the POTM voting. It sort of comes off as lazy. I really like the W4G Rating Bar. It seemed interesting, and think it will force voters to venture off onto different pages and vote there, instead of stepping into the POTM voting page and picking/choosing whoever's page is popular. -- @leroyswish (Talk) 11:08, 20 October 2013 (MST)

Realize this discussion might be long dead now but had an idea to try and break the two-horse races that always seem to emerge. Perhaps the first week could be nominations week or something like that, with people not being able to vote for someone who's already been voted until the weeks over. - Exray 23 Nov 2013

Well I think I have mastered my templating enough that I thought I would suggest adding the following, that could added as a template to be used by admins on the front page and by each month's winner to include on their user page or character page should they wish. Note I used February's Winner Jangala, and a few others purely as an example of how the template looks. Liath (talk) 07:28, 9 February 2014 (MST) removed examples - Liath

I'm just putting in my "2 cents", and I for one lost the care to win PoTM a long time ago, due to what Sterga said exactly, but alot nicer than how I would of said it. It just looks like a bunch of CORP best friend circles taking turns choosing each other to me. Most of the voters know each other, and most of them are CORP, and even some of them are in the same SG. If you look at that list of previous winners, most of them are affiliated with each other in some form, be it the same SG, CORP, or friend list. I believe 1 or 2 winners in that list even have 2 pages that won PoTM. Again, I agree with what Sterga says, the whole thing just looks like a Best Friend's Circle club of some kind. - Caliga