Forum:Getting back on our feet

I think the time has come to stop just editing as if nothing has happened and get ourselves sorted out into a cohesive community once more. Therefore, these are my suggestions of what is needed:
 * Greater fora activity especially from our admins and moderators.
 * A chat needs to be sorted out sooner rather than later that is on this site, rather than the extended site.
 * A pan-user message system needs to be sorted out, so that important things are not missed (for example, my admin application may have gone unnoticed had I not asked people to vote).
 * More redlinks need attention, espacially as the move created problems.
 * Projects should commence to increase targetted activity and make better use of our fewer users.
 * Scarface11235 and I have one such one in mind whereby we will look at the pages such as Bounty Hunters, Prostitutes and professions etc.
 * Although I seem to be the only one interested, I'd like to start with my Language Assessibilty one.
 * More crucially though, I'd like to get a project started that would basically mean a lot of users paying a lot of attention to the Special:WantedPages as we now have a lot more user related ones that need to be removed, but also pages need to be created, especially from VB. Links should not just be removed; they should be redirected or pages created for them.

What I am hoping for from this thread is suggestions of how to move forward, support for projects, extra project suggestions, and the viability of any of these ideas to be discussed. We can't allow these discussions to keep ending in the middle of nowhere. Thanks, Guardian.

κηδεμόνας μιλώ  18:57, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

On a related note, I noticed that there are two sets of forums linked from the menu panel on the left side of the site - the "community forum" at http://community.falloutwiki.com/index and the "wiki forum" at http://www.falloutwiki.com/Forum:Index. What is the intended purpose of each, such that both are needed? It looks to me like they have overlapping purpose and will likely serve only to divide what little community discussion might occur. --(talk 03:34, 11 January 2012 (UTC)
 * See: Forum:Community site. User avatar tag.gif Avatar talk.png 12:20, 11 January 2012 (UTC)


 * Notes GA's IP ;) κηδεμόνας  μιλώ  22:00, 11 January 2012 (UTC)


 * There is currently a messaging system in place, I will hold my hands up to this, I honestly forgot to use it for your admin request.
 * Red links are always in need of attention and I do try and reduce them as I can. What I don't want to see is people creating the page with a basic page layout and no content, simply to get rid of the red link. Kinda defeats the purpose of the process, red links are pages that are needed WITH content, not just to be created. But honestly I have spent a lot of work pulling the number of wanted pages down a lot (roughly by a couple of thousand). And it isn't as bad as it looks, atm there are 1391 wanted pages, with probably about 2/3 not actually being needed. This is due to internal link error which will hopefully be corrected by Curse at some point. The others are created by the archive template, which cant really be avoided and we have to suffer them showing as being wanted.
 * Project is probably going to needs its own topic for discussion. Personally I don't want to see any more created, due to the sheer that currently exist and are not being completed any time soon. Eventually we will just have to much to complete and not enough resources to complete them. Reminds me of the old saying, dont bite off more than you can chew. Something which I think is a good read on the subject, is Porter thoughts he placed over on Wikia, majority of which I have to agree with. wikia:fallout:User_blog:Porter21/Projects_revisited User avatar tag.gif Avatar talk.png 22:11, 11 January 2012 (UTC)
 * P.S. That is not my IP =P just that of a terminal at work. That is one thing I like about Curse, it is not blocked at work =D


 * Believe it or not, I didn't note down any IPs really. You do so dearly love to shoot down my ideas, don't you? :p
 * For the red links, I did say that red links should never be removed, but rather redirected or created. Even user pages could be directed to a 'User does not exist' page. And even if new projects aren't the answer, we at least need a cohesive group to get rid of the list. Once it is down, it will be easy to maintain. And it makes more sense then letting it sit at that mark. I'm willing to do this, but will anyone help me? Feel free to add your name to the section I have added... And no worries about the message system. Could we run a test on Sunday at say 3pm GMT (also UTC at the mo) to see how it works? κηδεμόνας  μιλώ  23:45, 11 January 2012 (UTC)
 * As for mine and Al's idea, I will let Al explain, as he will be able to say what we want to do more easily. Over to you Al ;):


 * Not shooting your ideas down, just giving a different perspective =P As for the red links, I have no intention of letting them sit. Just like I didn't let unused images or orphaned pages site there. Red links is the next big one that needs tackling, and am in the process of bringing down over time. Hell, I must have cleared at least a few hundred since we forked, since Curse doesn't limit those pages to 1000 entries. My ultimate goal is to have ever entry under Maintenance reports in Special:SpecialPages down to 0 where it is possible. User avatar tag.gif Avatar talk.png 21:11, 12 January 2012 (UTC)


 * On the subject of red links, I have put the ball rolling on something that has irked me for a while and also gave me pause when editing red links of forum pages, due to them getting bumped to the top. And that is to introduce a forum archive, so they can be edited and not spoil the flow of normal discussion. User avatar tag.gif Avatar talk.png 02:52, 13 January 2012 (UTC)


 * Now that's the kind of thing I wanted, ideas to move forward. I think that that sounds like a wonderful idea, but I think we'd need to add cats such as Category:Adminship Request so that they can be found easily. I know that there are a hell of a lot past discussions, and they'd need to be easily navigated. I can look into that if you want? And even you acknowledge that the red links need to be tackled, so what is the harm in laying out guidelines on a projct page? I can see no reason not to, especially as it makes it clearer for people doing it and they can see easily who they are working with... κηδεμόνας  μιλώ  19:52, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

If you want to do so, that's down to you. Personally, I am going to carry on as I am doing, cleared down about 100 links alone last night. As for the forum archive, my intention is to have the archive mirror the forums as they are now. That way people can find them from where they remember them, only difference if the forum will have archive appended to it (that would also include categories as well). It would also entail a simple process of changing the forum header from to  to archive it. I have done a test on a single forum which you can see here Forum:Archive. Just need to wait for some technical help from Porter, as I would prefer to use instead of  for archiving. User Avatar talk.png 20:50, 13 January 2012 (UTC)


 * In response to the original post, adding a chat system to the wiki itself is easier said than done unfortunately, at least if you're looking for the kind of account integration the Wikia chat has. The only options are using something like mw:Extension:WebChat; at least it doesn't require people to create a second account and can be used from the wiki itself. Of course, feel free to take a look at mw:Category:Chat extensions and see whether there's anything suitable there.


 * Regarding projects - while I share GA's sentiment that finishing existing projects would be preferable to starting new ones, I wouldn't really stop anyone from creating new ones if he/she is really motivated to work on them (i.e. if they don't end up being dead-beats). -- Porter21 (talk) 15:57, 14 January 2012 (UTC)


 * The PHP Free Chat looks the best, and claims to be customisable, so maybe that could be explored as an option. But the problem with completing Projects for the sake of it is that they will not be completed as well as they could be, and they are not tackling the issue that needs tackling. For example, carrying on with the F01 and 2 characters project will do nothing to reduce red-links, which is what I want to do, as do a few others... Can you see what I mean? (Nice to have you back by the way Porter, I want to talk to you about MediaWiki etc at some point, but that'll have to wait for a few days  κηδεμόνας  [~μιλώ~]  23:30, 15 January 2012 (UTC)


 * Then I suggest the Van Buren article project, since about 2/3 of the actual true wanted pages (those not caused by archive template etc.) are caused by the need for VB pages, which this project is directed towards creating. At the moment, if you create a red link project, you will have a major overlap with this project. I would suggest completing that project first, then creating a red link project to mop up the remaining links. Two birds, one stone and everyone is happy. User avatar tag.gif Avatar talk.png 17:54, 16 January 2012 (UTC)


 * That seems reasonable to me; your wish is my command :). It'll be set up by tomorrow evening, ready to go. However, in that case, I would like to repropose an idea I presented to Itachou and Jspoel a while ago now: I think that it makes sense to have an image to fill the gaps in the VB articles where there simply isn't one. Unlike for other games, we'll never fill them, and so I propose a 'No image' image, if you see what I mean. Then I can get rid of the image needed templates, and kill 3 birds with 1 stone ;) κηδεμόνας  [~μιλώ~]  18:58, 16 January 2012 (UTC)


 * They are only placed there from page creation using the standard template. I am more than happy to have the image template removed, once it has been checked that there is no image for said page in the design documents. Then all you need to do is use the @hide for the image in the infobox. Simplest way to confirm there is no image, is to check what links here then scan the design documents that link to that page for a image. User avatar tag.gif Avatar talk.png 19:05, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

Red link creation team

 * κηδεμόνας μιλώ  23:45, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

Existing projects on the community portal
I've just had a look through some of the existing community projects listed on the community portal, and I noticed that some of them appear to be left over from before the community split/move/fork. It should be noted that some of these may go dormant if key people driving them have not migrated to this wiki. It also looks to me like some of them may not have been completely scoped before work was started, so it may not be possible to determine their state of completion without further analysis. Considering the limited number of people active on the wiki at the moment, it might be a good idea to mark some or all of the currently listed projects as inactive (as appropriate) and come up with a smaller, more focused list of projects that the active people are interested in contributing to. --(talk 00:42, 17 January 2012 (UTC)
 * To be honest, I think the bugs project can be stripped completely, as it can never be completed. Technically it is a never ending project. User avatar tag.gif Avatar talk.png 06:13, 17 January 2012 (UTC)