Difference between revisions of "Doom Wiki:Central Processing/2013"

From DoomWiki.org

(Uh-oh (NPOV biographies))
(Uh-oh (NPOV biographies))
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::::::::::Actually, you couldn't post it, as it falls under [[wikipedia:wikipedia:no original research|original research]]. However, you could make the webpage and I could post it on the wiki (if we traveled down the road myk suggests, that is). [[User:Nuxius|Nuxius]] 06:45, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
 
::::::::::Actually, you couldn't post it, as it falls under [[wikipedia:wikipedia:no original research|original research]]. However, you could make the webpage and I could post it on the wiki (if we traveled down the road myk suggests, that is). [[User:Nuxius|Nuxius]] 06:45, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
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:::::::::::An aside: the Doom Wiki is ''not'' Wikipedia. We don't have a "no original research" policy. It is, in fact, [[Doom Wiki:Policies and guidelines#Original research|specifically allowed]]. [[User:Bloodshedder|Bloodshedder]] 21:53, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
  
 
:::::::::Because this was the ''second'' time someone had asked for deletion of content in their bio article, it seemed reasonable to pool opinions on a general policy.  We haven't achieved that, so we move on and at least try to decide what to do with the Codeimp article.
 
:::::::::Because this was the ''second'' time someone had asked for deletion of content in their bio article, it seemed reasonable to pool opinions on a general policy.  We haven't achieved that, so we move on and at least try to decide what to do with the Codeimp article.

Revision as of 16:53, 19 May 2008


Archived discussions

First half of 2008

Special:Uncategorizedimages

Happy third birthday, Doom Wiki!

To honor this anniversary, today I will begin a boring task, in recognition of all the boring tasks that had to be done to get the site started (by Fredrik, radius, Insertwackynamehere, and others).

Background reading: [1] [2] [3].  Basically, due to a bug in MediaWiki, categorized images were sometimes listed as uncategorized.  The bug was fixed, but not in such a way that the backlog of mistakes was cleared.  There has recently been another MediaWiki upgrade, so I will try one more time to clear the backlog automagically.  If this fails, however, I will simply assume that the staff has more pressing tasks to hand (this was 3 upgrades ago after all), and double-check all 600+ tags manually.    Ryan W 17:39, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

The cron job has finally run again, and Special:Uncategorizedimages looks empty.  My apologies to those generous PWAD authors whose map images I have put into a category marked "Items without confirmed copyright status will sooner or later be nominated for deletion".  Hopefully this is temporary, or at least no more permanent than the "cleanup" article tag.    Ryan W 15:02, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Hexen Wiki announced

A wiki about Hexen was founded last week by User:Lordareon.  (At the moment its edit history consists of 1 welcome-box template and 2 image uploads, plus the usual edits by bots.)  How do people feel about this?

I could see why some Wikians might not want to be associated with the demographic Doom attracts by staying compatible with modern hardware.  ;>    In any case most wikis are not in our enviable position of being able to draw on an existing community right from the start.  On the other hand, should the Hexen Wiki grow large and active, we would have to rethink any duplicate content (similar to the way Encyclopedia Gamia omits full walkthroughs for Zelda, Metroid, etc).  On the third hand, the "infant mortality" of wikis is so high that maybe it doesn't make any difference what we think.    Ryan W 20:11, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Uh-oh (NPOV biographies)

I don't know if anyone noticed me on #zdoom the other day talking about the CodeImp article, but the situation is getting a bit weirdI would really appreciate it if other people could provide opinions, especially people who know CodeImp.  (Maybe he thinks we're going to become just another site with unsourced statements about him — we do still have quite a bit of crap in the bio articles, in general.)    Ryan W 19:21, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

I have temporarily hidden the bio in question until this policy is clarified.  Here is the thread from User talk:CodeImp:

you don't see me writing about zdaemon's actions against Doom Connector either, do you.   If that is a significant part of the Doom community's history, and you are willing to release your writing under the GFDL, of course you could.

Our policies on bio articles are a bit nebulous at the moment, so could you explain more fully what you mean by "unwise"?    Ryan W 21:56, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Look, most people don't know all about this issue, most people just heard a few things, mostly from the other party, because ZDaemon folks like to talk a lot about me that way. The ZDaemon administration and me (with Doom Connector in particular) just don't go along together. When this things happened, I discussed it with a trustworthy person who spoke with both parties and the consensus is to just drop the issue and both ignore each other. I'm totally willing to do so, and have been doing so for years now. Ever since then I am not posting any of this in my article, the Doom Connector article, nor the ZDaemon article or anywhere else, because it is provocative and offensive. Hence it is unwise for these ZDaemon minions to come over here and provoke me with their biased stories without knowing about ZDaemon's actions. How more detailed can I define "unwise"? --CodeImp 03:56, 23 February 2008 (UTC)
Yes, I think I understand — "unwise" meaning "needlessly incendiary, therefore counterproductive".  I apologize if that was obvious to everybody who was around at the time, but I wasn't, so I was confused.
The issue now becomes: is this a minor historical event, something people rarely think about when they think of you?  If so, then I agree that it can be omitted.  If not, however, then it is impossible to have a complete and balanced article about you (unlike Wikipedia, we cannot legally do this despite your objections).  I'm not suggesting that you or anyone else needs to answer this question right now, just that it is important because it is bound to come up again (Andy Kempling, Uwe Girlich, Steffen Winterfeldt).  IMHO we need to either make the policy more specific, or start deleting controversial articles.    Ryan W 19:47, 23 February 2008 (UTC)
I don't think we could call it a community if it lacked any controversy. :)
I re-added the paragraph before noticing this here discussion and I apologize for acting prematurely. I believe it deserves to be shown, but in CodeImp's defense it needs to be as NPOV as possible, including more detail on why the issue has long since been mutually disregarded by involved parties. IE, an explanation along the lines of "ZDaemon and CodeImp have agreed to 'drop the issue' ..." and so on, if what CodeImp says above is true. Zack 02:15, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
Sources for the latter point may be difficult to come by if it happened on IRC or in e-mail (most of those forum links posted by deathz0r are broken too).  I don't particularly want the CodeImp article deleted, and I think changing the neutrality policy would be a slippery slope.  Those are the only two options I can think of, however, given that people have not exactly fallen all over themselves to do the necessary research for a fair and thorough writeup (I myself lack the required longevity, contacts, and [probably] temperament IMHO).  CodeImp himself is a human being with free will and therefore may disagree with some parts of our policy page — indeed, many Wikia sites do not even attempt to be NPOV when writing bio articles for living people (I am thinking of fanfic communities with articles about authors; Wikifur has also had issues along these lines).  If CodeImp sticks to his opinion and people don't want to have a courtesy deletion policy, I suppose the next step is to prowl around the listserv etc. for advice from veteran Wikians.    Ryan W 03:08, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
I made a few adjustments to the Controversy section when I brought it back. I am trying to make it clear that whether CodeImp did anything against ZDaemon is not a fact, but it is certainly provable that he was accused by Raider (by the linked forum post) of doing so. I believe this fits very well within NPOV rules. If you feel that NPOV was the biggest issue preventing a solid decision on whether the article should stay or go, then I feel the problem has been alleviated. The only thing left, as you pointed out, is whether or not we should do a "courtesy" deletion. Now's the perfect opportunity to poll everybody.
(Off topic) Wikifur allows anybody and their mother to write an extensive article about themselves. Thankfully Doom Wiki has a policy against that or we'd be up to our space helmets in garbage. :) Zack 03:55, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
I could post several of this kind of accusations on the ZDaemon page, with logs and all, but let's not just do that. Anyone who feels the need to post these kind of provoking/accusing statements without the full cause and the provoking action on the other page is just trying to attack through defamation on character, but I suppose that is considered normal to some of you [4]. I have had enough of this argument. Do you want your wiki to be a flamewar, or be at all? Remove your unjustified accusations or remove my whole profile, before I feel the need to retaliate. CodeImp 17:57, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
Given your edit summary, I'm not sure you're still reading this, but here goes.
The page you linked to contains completely unsourced statements, presented with no lines of reasoning, and written by a pre-selected committee who cannot be contradicted (except by starting one's own site, as you say).  There is not supposed to be anything remotely like that on the Doom Wiki.  If you find some, feel free to erase it and report that person for vandalism.  It is true, unfortunately, that unsourced statements about the trojan were added to the CodeImp article several times in 2005, but in every case they were removed immediately (by Jon Dowland, I believe).
There is certainly no place for flamewars here, especially in the articles themselves.  (I thought that that was clearly stated on the policy page, but maybe the wording should be more specific.)  That is why we require sources for all information not obtainable through playtesting/editing, why we carefully identify opinions as opinions and not facts, and why controversial topics are discussed, in a forum open to any reader or editor, before large chunks of text are changed.  (Otherwise they generally get reverted, usually by Fraggle.)
In fact, none of our policies about bio articles are really set in stone, which is why Zaximus and I tried to suggest several alternative solutions to this problem, one of which was removing the trojan paragraph (though I admit I haven't asked our other major contributors about that yet).  If I had dictatorial authority over this site, I might delete the CodeImp article, because it uses your real name and mentions trojans and DoS attacks — so it could affect your job prospects, for example, which would be a disgrace.
Finally, while I don't use ZDaemon myself, I know that the ZDaemon article has nonsense posted to it (temporarily) on a regular basis, especially in the "criticism" and "clans" sections.  If your accusations have sources, as you say above, they would probably improve the article.
Ryan W 20:11, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
"The page you linked to contains completely unsourced statements, presented with no lines of reasoning, and written by a pre-selected committee who cannot be contradicted (except by starting one's own site, as you say)." The reason why I linked to that page was not because it is a source of information. The reason why I linked to that page was to show how some people, the committee who cannot be contradicted, the ZDaemon administration in this case, think that defamation of character is common sense, which is what the page does (I think it real life this is even illegal, although I'm not 100% sure on that). But you just explained yourself that this cannot be used as a source of information and neither can any other link to their website or forums, especially because it is all biased (they still have a user-base to care about, they are not going to write 'we are assholes, we did this and that to those people' anywhere). I am still waiting on your decision; remove the unjustified accusations or remove my whole profile. CodeImp 20:28, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
Because this is a wiki, no one user makes content or policy decisions (especially if they affect a large group of articles).  I have asked for more opinions on the general discussion page, but truthfully I don't know how long that will take; there are a lot of editors who only check in every week or so.  If you think that is too slow, tell me, and I will blank the article and lock it down until the policy is clarified.    Ryan W 21:38, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
I'd say admins decide, it is their site. But fair enough, clearing it is a temporary acceptable alternative. CodeImp 22:02, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
It's blanked.  I'll also ask people to post on the general page instead of here, so discussion isn't diluted over multiple locations.    Ryan W 22:38, 25 February 2008 (UTC)



Let's discuss this, please.    Ryan W 17:18, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Ryan W, you asked for my opinion on it. I've been avoiding replying simply because I don't want to get drawn into what is probably an inevitable flamewar over the subject. The other thing is that I don't really know enough about the ZDaemon/multiplayer community to know one way or another how significant an event this is.

If I had to pick a side, I'd probably say that this is a significant event worth mentioning, and it should be included in the article. As far as I know, CodeImp has not denied that the accusations against him are true, and we aren't bound by any deals he made with the ZDaemon staff. The ZDaemon article has a pretty lengthy controversy section, but perhaps his side of events for this particular drama is missing.

I think it's important to realise that articles about people don't exist only to portray their subjects in a favorable light. If we're going to decide on a policy, perhaps an "opt out-all or nothing" policy might be a sensible option - ie. people can choose to have their biography removed if they choose, but if it stays, they don't get to choose what is displayed on it. Fraggle 01:47, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

As an aside, I'd like to ask CodeImp specifically: please clarify what you mean by "Remove your unjustified accusations or remove my whole profile, before I feel the need to retaliate" because it really sounds like you're making some kind of threat against the site. If it is, we should be seriously considering how we should be reacting to this. Fraggle 01:56, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
Let me add real quick that the article is not making any unjustified accusations. The statement "CodeImp has been accused," is entirely true because someone (not a Wiki) has accused him. This statement can be backed up as well by linking to the forum post in which the claim was made.
How the Doom Wiki admins handle blatant threats from someone who's been accused of cyber terrorism, well, that's none of my business. Zack 15:14, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
Cyber terrorism??  Please calm down.  This is supposedly about our policy, not about CodeImp, and even so, all he's really said is that he's tempted to add (sourced!) dirty laundry to the ZDaemon article in turn, which may be only fair.    Ryan W 17:37, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
After this issue is resolved and the appropriate changes are made to the article, will it be possible to lock the article from being edited except by admins? This would prevent possible future biased edits to the article. Zack 15:14, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
It is possible, although the people at the central wikia will try to talk us out of it.  They say, "If 99 percent of the edits are vandalism, that's one thing, but is it really worth shutting out hundreds of thousands of new people to deal with four or five troublemakers?"  Although I don't know that our own target audience deserves quite that much idealism  :>  and although this particular article may already be about as long as it's going to get, I do kind of see their point.    Ryan W 18:03, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
Ideally I would like to see these type of unfortunate, but obviously notable community incidents documented in this wiki. Unfortunately documenting them accurately in NPOV might prove to be impossible in practice since the subjects are often huge flamebaits and tend to draw people to do biased edits (and often it's even hard to tell which edits are biased and which are not). Because of this I would argue that we should refrain from documenting this and other similar incidents. Plus, even though such drama might in a way be notable community history, I still wouldn't consider documenting it nearly as important as documenting, for example, famous PWADs. In other words, I consider this wiki complete enough even without articles about such things.
What we should do about the CodeImp article, I'm not entirely sure. Maybe first remove the controversy part and then lock the article as Zaximus mentioned? -- Janizdreg 01:36, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

I personally think that as it stands, this part of the article on CodeImp should not be on the wiki. Before Zack edited it, it did not fit the NPOV requirements. (I think this part has already been thoroughly discussed, so I'll leave it at that.)

Zack changed this to state that it was ZDaemon that made the accusation, thus altering what the article was about (an article about ZDaemon accusing him of doing it versus an article about him actually doing it). While this made the article fit the NPOV requirement, it brings up a question of notability. An accusation alone does not provide the grounds for notability. In order to be notable, the accuser needs to have at least some form of proof to back them up (which the aforementioned post on the ZDaemon forums lacks). I mean, accusations (without evidence) happen in the community all the time, should we include them as well? Considering the crap that goes around in the various Doom forums sometimes, I'd hate to see the state of the wiki if people knew they could do that and get away with it.

As it stands, in order for this article to remain, at least one of two things would have to happen. One way is CodeImp would basically have to come out and say "Yeah, I did it, and here's why..." However, I don't expect him to actually do that, nor would I ever ask him to, as he himself said they both agreed to drop the issue. Asking him to go against his word would call up ethical and moral boundaries I refuse to cross, even if it provides more knowledge of the subject matter that enables us to draft a more complete article. Other than that, ZDaemon would have to provide a third party with (or post to the wiki itself) the evidence they say they have, and I don't really expect them to do that either.

Anyway, to bring my ramblings to a close, without CodeImp's POV or ZDaemon showcasing concrete proof that he did it, I just can't see this part of the article ever meeting the NPOV and/or notability criteria. - Nuxius 07:07, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

IMHO this is a very sensible analysis.  It also avoids another side effect of courtesy deletions: ZDaemon isn't a person, so we might delete the CodeImp article and add accusations to the ZDaemon article, which makes the wiki as a whole unbalanced the other way.  I endorse your slippery slope argument (and Janizdreg's as well, although so far no one has seriously proposed abandoning NPOV).
Note that this would actually be a pervasive change to our current practice about sources.  The written history of a gaming community is expressed almost entirely in media with no fact checking: forums, Usenet, e-mail, IRC, BBSes.  This logic therefore strikes out a massive amount of our existing content which seems to have consensus but can never be proven (Anders Johnsen is one of the top 5 players of all time, the ZDaemon source closing was controversial, Plutonia 32 is unusually hard, Controls, Free Hissy, ... )  Even this is really somebody's personal web site — authoritative, yes, but in need of corroboration.
Having said all that, I think your idea is better than any of my three ideas.  Readers who like speculation can, well, google the word "Doom".
I implore you, please, never to apologize for rambling.  If more people here rambled more often, we wouldn't have to re-ask their opinions fifty times before we could more forward with a consensus.    Ryan W 01:56, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
Did someone say "abandon NPOV?" Heathen! Seriously, doing that could turn this wiki into a YouTube thread. We don't want that! :P
After reading Nuxius' words on this it occurs to me that we probably are making a big deal out of something trivial. All we know is that CodeImp was accused of something. Is an ACCUSATION really a noteworthy thing to have in a person's article? The purpose of most wikis is to share knowledge, not political garbage.
The media has accused Eric Harris, doer of bad things, of having been influenced by Doom. Such an accusation is significant only because a significant portion of the community has felt an impact by the actions, both by the shooting itself and the accusations made. (Which of those two actions has affected us more than the other probably varies from person to person, but that's off topic anyway.) Point is, an accusation CAN be significant enough to document if the accusation itself has had a noticeable effect on Doom or the Doom community.
Well, DID the accusations of ZDaemon against CodeImp have a significant impact? Seems to me like it was just a bit of drama on one forum thread, maybe on IRC too, that upset a dozen lusers, woke the trolls and lasted no more than a week. If there was any notieable damage it was on CodeImp as an individual, and all we're doing as a community is reopening his old wounds. Hell, this here thread may very well have gotten more attention than the original drama years ago that started this whole thing.
So I'm changing my mind. I think the bad words can go away. Perhaps it can be mentioned briefly (if not already) in a controversy section on ZDaemon. Doens't even have to mention CodeImp. Just "it upset some guys on a forum." :P I'unno.
Hillary 2008 Zack 20:01, 11 March 2008 (UTC)
Zack summed my thoughts up pretty well in his second paragraph. What I was saying really only applied to accusations, Ryan W, not everything on the wiki. I personally think that accusations need to be handled differently that your typical information in a wiki article, as they call a person's credibility into line, and without sufficient proof it could be considered slander, and that is no light matter. Nuxius 01:24, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

I see this discussion has continued here and stopped. Although the content has been removed, my page still exists and it still has all the biased opinions and accusations in my talk pages here and here. Please choose to either remove the garbage or the pages completely, thanks. --CodeImp 20:20, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

You mean the history? It's still going to be there if the article is changed and put back, but history is always questionable; it's discarded material editors have found unsuitable. Keep in mind that you are also an "interested party" in this. I agree that controversy part could go from there, as it's just for an incident, not properly documented, and ends up representing you improperly on the whole, but the known facts about the hack/exploit, put in context, would be convenient in an article about online port controversy (from Doomserv to the present). Who is like God? 22:55, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
Actually, MediaWiki allows individual entries in the history to be deleted (a daily occurrence on Wikipedia, in response to cease-and-desist letters).  Presumably, however, Codeimp's name would be included in your hypothetical article, along with the links to the forum threads.  Given that Codeimp objected to those links even appearing on the talk page, I assume that this wouldn't satisfy him.
In your hypothetical article, the burden of proof would still be on that editor to show that the controversy was more notable than the average weekly forum drama.  Does this generalize to the cases I described above (we can't say that Anders Johnsen was a really good player unless we can agree on an authoritative citation)?  I am not certain, but I find the possibility depressing.    Ryan W 01:51, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
I never mentioned the history. Read my writing again, carefully. Why does the conversation have to start over again? It was a length discussion and the consensus was to remove the slander, but none of these administrators steps up and actually fixes these pages. --CodeImp 06:30, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
I think the history part stemmed off of when you said Although the content has been removed, my page still exists.... And then you go on about how you want it removed (if this isn't what you meant, then I would suggest a rewording of your post). Well, the actual article itself on you is currently removed, and the only thing that is on your page right now is the box explaining why it has been locked and a link pointing to this discussion, so there is nothing there to really take objection to, so it was naturally assumed that you were referring to the history of that page.
So, now that I know you were not referring to the history, either you are saying that you do have a problem with your current bio page being used as place to inform wiki users over what is going on, or I am still misunderstanding you. Nuxius 09:14, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
CodeImp, reading the previous statements on this discussion, I don't see a consensus. But in my opinion you're overly concerned about this, it just kind of makes you look bad. Why not let people decide what they think about what Raider said about you back then? it's history anyway and the ZDaemon forums will still be available regardless of whether they are linked from here. And if people read that the link is missing from here because you complained, what will they think? "Does this CodeImp guy have something to hide?" Then they'll Google around and find the ZDaemon forums, a page bitching at the wiki for deleting that content, or whatever.
Ryan W, I'd say you just went out on a limb there. It's better to wait till articles are actually written, before making assumptions about them. I could mention the controversy in ways that CodeImp might not mind, or he might not be so concerned if they're not on a page directly about him. Who is like God? 12:01, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
Nuxius, there is a temporary page here which was supposed to be there until it was to be removed or cleaned out depending on the discussion above, and I already linked to the other two pages.
I'm getting a bit sick and tired of this. Those people have obviously used these pages for slander whereever possible. Myk if I were to write a bunch of shit about you on wikia and moderators would not remove it, would you like to see that? Please, you are being ridiculous now. Gives the impression that you are just as biased as those who wrote that shit on my pages. --CodeImp 13:54, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
As I said before, unsourced slander would be removed, no matter who it was about.  The discussion here is not an attack on you or anybody else; it is an attempt to determine whether the historical incident is/was important enough to write about.  If you don't like this page, you can always erase it yourself (there is a rule about that on Wikipedia, but not here).
To respond to your other post, I have consulted the Wikia people, and I am also trying to track down some of our regular contributors on IRC.  If all that comes to naught, well, we have to respect people's right not to participate in the discussion.  myk, I think there is insufficient consensus right now for a general bibliographic policy, but in this case there is probably enough agreement to remove that last paragraph from the Codeimp article.  I guess we'll just have to wait for more cases and see if a consistent precedent emerges.    Ryan W 23:59, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
Ryan, it seems to me that you are the one who's particularly concerned about a "bibliographic policy", and as a result you blocked this article, stalling any editing proposals. And by "unsourced slander", what do you mean? A source for the accusation itself, or a source backing the accusation? In this case, there is a source for the accusation. The wiki is not making an accusation, just reporting an opinion on the exploit incident, as it properly attributes the opinion. Who is like God? 03:45, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
O.K., let's hypothetically assume there is a page about you on the wiki for a second; basically you're saying that you're O.K. with say, me adding "Myk has been accused of going over the top and being batshit insane. It has also been said that he likes to nitpick at everything, and generally talks a lot but doesn't say much. He has also been compared to a Escher painting, in that the world which he sees is completely backwards from reality."? (these are a couple of accusations made towards myk from Scuba Steve, Danarchy and others on Doomworld, in case anyone is curious)
I've already made it pretty clear where my views stand; if I saw something like I just described in a persons bio, I'd take it as vandalism and delete it in a heartbeat. Nuxius 07:01, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
If it is that simple, that means I could make my own website or forum, write some accusations on it and cite them here because "they have a source to cite" and the wiki is not making the accusation, "just reporting it". --CodeImp 06:28, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
Actually, you couldn't post it, as it falls under original research. However, you could make the webpage and I could post it on the wiki (if we traveled down the road myk suggests, that is). Nuxius 06:45, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
An aside: the Doom Wiki is not Wikipedia. We don't have a "no original research" policy. It is, in fact, specifically allowed. Bloodshedder 21:53, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
Because this was the second time someone had asked for deletion of content in their bio article, it seemed reasonable to pool opinions on a general policy.  We haven't achieved that, so we move on and at least try to decide what to do with the Codeimp article.
I protected the article mainly to show Codeimp that someone was actually listening to him.  Given what goes on at a lot of gaming sites, I can understand people being paranoid if they don't hang out here a lot.  It doesn't prevent content-related proposals because the page history is still there, but IMHO a specific tone and wording can be chosen later anyway; the current question is whether the incident is worth mentioning at all, and if so, whether Codeimp's name really needs to be included.
Finally, the important part: But in my opinion you're overly concerned about this, it just kind of makes you look bad.   Let's think about that for a minute.  For the next 20 years, whenever someone types his name into Google, our article will probably come up (feel free to test this with our other bio articles).  Do we therefore cause future employers in the IT field, and blind dates, and everyone else to see the word "DDoS" next to his name?  Because somebody said things about him in a *forum*?  Good grief.  More than one person on the Wikia listserv couldn't see how this was even a discussion, and I'm starting to agree.
For Codeimp, and anyone else who's been on forum sites long enough to have large disputes, this is a very real issue, which arguably should not be decided with the kind of abstract logic that we (and especially I) tend to use on the wiki.  I complained to Janizdreg when he deleted the Lutrov71 article out of hand, but now I completely see his point.    Ryan W 08:48, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
If those comments above about me were used in an article (with a proper link to the threads) where for some reason they made sense in context and were notable, and the article were written in a balanced (neutral) way, I certainly would not complain.
Considering "offensive material" represents allegations of crashing online servers, of stealing some textures, of copying source code lines, of using a cheat program, or just being called an asshole or moron online, we are in pretty safe ground compared to wikis that deal with real stuff. Thus, strong a concern over legal reprimand or other fear mongering is really unnecessary. Most people that are prominent enough to talk about are known online (this is a case in point) and discussion with them to help ensure the neutrality of the wiki is our main instrument in cases where someone is directly offended by any content. Who is like God? 09:11, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
Discussion with them?  But you have already rejected Codeimp's version of the article as a vanity page (which doesn't make sense, since it is little more than a list of his major projects; it could have been written by anyone who follows the Doomworld news page).  Then, when we discuss content of borderline notability, you advocate broad, deductive criteria for deciding whether or not Codeimp's life is affected, rather than letting him tell you himself.  Really, under your proposal, what could he contribute?    Ryan W 21:44, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Level set boxes

For the level articles a box is used listing all the levels of the set the level in question belongs to. For Doom II wads it lists this as either 1-10, 11-20, 21-30, and 31-33 (secret), correspondingly. Since in Doom II the first sky goes all the way to level 11, I think it'd be more consistent to show 1-11 for the first part, and 12-20 for the second. Who is like God? 13:01, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

US$0.02:  This convention is certainly not set in stone (and COMPET-N agrees with your divisions as well).  If you feel like grinding through every navbox and every MAP11 article and changing all the links, you're welcome to do so.    Ryan W 11:03, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
I did it for Doom II. I'll be doing the rest soon enough. By the way, Compet-n doesn't agree, and I believe that may be what caused someone to start it with 1-10. But Compet-n tables here don't depend on those navboxes, so there shouldn't be any incompatibilities due to the difference. Who is like God? 08:17, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
You're right, COMPET-N doesn't agree.  Not sure what I was remembering there.    Ryan W 23:29, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Categories pages

At least as far as the more practical ones are concerned (levels come to mind), these are unhelpful in giving the information any sort of hierarchy due to relevance, bunching PWAD levels, offshoot game levels, and the main Doom levels alphabetically. One solution could be to use a disambiguation page (which could add some more basic info too), giving the category (MAP01 in various WADs, or something) as one of the options to go to. The original PC Doom level would appear as the first option of the disambiguation. Keep in mind that when saying "E1M1" 95% of the time people are talking about E1M1:Hangar (this applies to ExMx and MAPxx levels in general). I think the category system is cool but as it stands doesn't work well as a result for the "Go" button. Who is like God? 14:03, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

The "Go" button could be improved by changing the redirects at "ExMx" and "MAPxx" to point to the id levels (which used to be the case; see Talk:E1M1).  You may be correct that there is a clearer way to structure the categories overall, but three or four rounds of discussion haven't produced it yet.  Could you give a couple of specific examples?  It's not supposed to be easy to accidentally navigate to a slot category from a stock map, what with the navbox sitting right there, and Commercial games/Levels linked from the main page.    Ryan W 17:14, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
Yeah, I agree with making ExMx and MAPxx go to the original levels. At the top each could have a note providing a link for when you're looking for levels in that slot in general, or for a level in that slot in a PWAD or other game/version. I don't really have any ideas on making categories per se clearer, as all I'd thought was using a disambig in the middle in a case like levels (but just redirecting to the original seems better in retrospect). Who is like God? 19:02, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
Are you saying that each slot category should have a subcategory for stock levels only?  That seems a tad overblown, given that most slots will only have two (for ExMx) or five (for MAPxx).
If I'm once again misunderstanding you completely, maybe you should make a test case out of the MAP01: Entryway article.  If people like your method better than the current one, then I volunteer to copy your changes to the other 67 slots.   :>     Ryan W 20:16, 22 March 2008 (UTC)
At the top each could have a note providing a link for when you're looking for levels in that slot in general, or for a level in that slot in a PWAD or other game/version.
Actually, it's already pretty much set up like this at the top of every map page, see MAP01:_Entryway for example. Unless you're talking about something beyond that?
I do agree that the id levels should be easier to find when a user uses the search box, though. Although your method of forwarding E1M1 to E1M1: Hangar (Doom) instead of Category:E1M1 would work great for Doom, things get complicated a bit for MAP01, as there are 3 'official' MAP01s. Perhaps in that case, we could add a note at the top of each category listing giving easy access links to the various maps that occupy that slot in Doom II/Plutonia/TNT, so the user doesn't have sift through all the other PWADS to find that information. - Nuxius 23:32, 22 March 2008 (UTC)
Quite true, I had forgotten the levels already had a template at the top leading to the slot category. I do think the Doom and Doom II levels are more "notable" than the Final Doom ones. While Final Doom has become more popular now by being bundled with the main games it's not id's own work, and references still and almost always mean Entryway when talking about "Map01" in a looser context (e.g., if a demo without a text file is pointed out as a a "Map01" match, that's Doom II's level, or if someone says "like in Map01" while explaining an editing technique without added context, they mean Hell on Earth's as well). That's why I had thought of a disambiguation between the core id level and the category when the user types a level slot (it doesn't decide whether the category or the core id level is emphasized, but lets the user choose). Leading directly to the id level page as I proposed above initially loads more stuff, which might be redundant for anyone looking for such levels in general. Another more economic option is to directly put a link to the core id level at the top of any corresponding category page: This is a general grouping of all the levels occupying the MAP01 level slot, if you are looking for the level from Doom II by id Software, see MAP01: Entryway (Doom II). Who is like God? 22:48, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
I think I like your last idea because it can be coded in about 10 minutes, reduces the total loading time for people with PDAs and other underpowered machines, and acknowledges the large group of readers who could care less about editing or LMPs and just wants walkthroughs for the Xbox/Collector's Edition maps, which do include Final Doom.    Ryan W 23:13, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

References

I noted numbered references (as the used in the Wikipedia) aren't used. Is that more or less a policy? I need to know since I'm panning to add more references to some articles. The advantage of references only at the bottom is that they are easier to maintain, on the other hand they aren't as accurate. Who is like God? 14:03, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

There is no actual policy that says to use or not use inline references.  In practice they are rarely used, unless for some reason it is important to carefully specify which particular ideas came from where.  I'm not sure what you mean by "accurate", since in either case the person adding new text still has to make sure he/she lists all the sources that are relevant.    Ryan W 17:01, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
Accurate in respect to what the reference is for. They do also fill the text with link numbers that look kind of cruddy (especially considering there are already many wiki links on the page), on the other hand. Book encyclopedias don't really use them, generally (putting them at the end or even in a separate references volume), in any case. I think, in fact, they're better for annotations than for references (unless in something like school/university work maybe). One thing that can be done, especially for articles that can take many references, is to group the references into subjects or sections, for clarity. Who is like God? 17:14, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
I think there are many possible conventions depending on the format and purpose of the article (which is sort of implied by what you just said), and that's why we don't have a detailed policy.  It would also be hard to write a detailed policy which allows for a great deal of non-cited material (we don't require a citation for things that can be easily checked by playtesting or in an editor), so it might end up so confusing that no one would follow it anyway.  And of course most of our articles are still too short for it to really save time.
A paper encyclopedia doesn't necessarily need endnotes because 99 percent of the bibliography is existing secondary sources, each of which addresses every topic the article is going to include.  When writing a paper for a class, on the other hand, you do use endnotes because the reader is interested in the details of how you construct your argument (IIRC this has occasionally been done here too, for controversial topics).  To avoid "looking kind of cruddy", some authors of monographs use footnotes keyed to text excerpts (James Gleick for example); on the other hand, Wikipedia apparently values being taken seriously over transparent typesetting.  In an intermediate case, as you point out, an editor could organize the references by section.    Ryan W 18:10, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Reference/glossary section

What do you guys think about adding a "dictionary" type section to the wiki? It would be there to define technical terminology, community terms, expressions, and to add useful definitions that don't merit or need articles. Even lump types, file names, and such minutiae could individually be defined. All of which could be linked to articles for clarity. The Wikia team said they could create a namespace for such entries. Who is like God? 01:14, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

My take:  Every term in that "dictionary" should at least be a redirect, if not a whole article.  Therefore, as it says on the main page, this is already a dictionary.  Obviously there are benefits to compiling a self-contained document, but IMHO those benefits would be outweighed by the labor required to maintain hundreds and hundreds of descriptions in two places each.    Ryan W 22:18, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
A glossary/dictionary and an alphabetical listing of encyclopedia articles are different things. Dictionaries define terms in essential ways, provide origins and uses for words, and possibly usage examples. The encyclopedia gives broad overviews of relatively heterogeneous subjects. Each will vary in its scope of entries and similar entries will generally not be equivalent, as many words or phrases are pointless as encyclopedic subjects and various subjects can't be reduced to a basic set of definitions. What could make a great article may roughly share the scope with eight relatively unrelated definitions in a dictionary, and what could make a dictionary definition may translate to a measly encyclopedia stub or four different articles touching upon subjects related to the basic term. Who is like God? 07:43, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
Perhaps we could add a Glossary or Definition category? Another possibility is to add "related definitions" as a section in articles, either defining stuff on those suitable articles or pointing to sections on other articles that provide the appropriate definition (when a related definition pertains to more than one article or subject). Who is like God? 21:56, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Lower case template

Does anyone know how the lowercase article name template in the Wikipedia works and if it can easily be implemented here? See their id Software article for an example. Who is like God? 01:23, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

The source is here, but it does seem to include other templates and a magic word in it, so I don't know how easy it would be to implement it here. Who is like God? 19:21, 28 March 2008 (UTC)
Yeah, wikipedia markup is getting convoluted these days.  Let's see.
{{lcfirst}} is a parser function, not a template.  The other two transclusions are purely bureaucratic and don't need to be imported.  All the magic words should work because they are listed here.  Therefore, the relevant issue is the condition $wgAllowDisplayTitle=true, which we can't check ourselves; you'll have to ask the staff/janitor people about that.    Ryan W 04:26, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

Monaco skin

Hullo! I am Kirkburn, your friendly local Wikia Gaming Helper!

We are switching over all the default skins (for anon users) to our new skin "Monaco" this week. Most of the big wikis have already switched (i.e WoWWiki, Wookieepedia Dofus and FFXIclopedia.

It is now the main actively developed Wikia platform. As a successor to Quartz, it comes with even more customizability - you can find out more on w:c:inside:Monaco Skin Customization, where you can also find out info about the new features and widgets available. I have taken the liberty of already creating your MediaWiki:Monaco-sidebar, but you can customize it much further with more links.

An admin can set the default site skin via the skin section on Special:Preferences, or by editing MediaWiki:AdminSkin. If users wish to see another skin than the default, they can untick "See custom wiki skins (recommended)" on the same page.

We really want wikis to move on to Monaco partly because it's more awesome than Quartz and Monobook and partly as it is where the bulk of our resources are currently aimed :) Please report any problems or questions with Monaco here

Thanks for listening! Kirkburn (talk) 13:23, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Note that as Doom wiki did not previously have a skin set, I have set it to monaco-slate. If there are major objections to the change, it is okay to change it back, but you must be forewarned that Monaco is "Wikia's default skin", and you may miss out on future developments. Kirkburn (talk) 18:26, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
We need to do some work here, as Monaco seems kind of outdated/less robust, compared to MonoBook. Who is like God? 21:23, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
Outdated and less robust? In what ways do you mean? Kirkburn (talk) 17:12, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
Perhaps I'm wrong in part, as before I couldn't find my preferences, for example, but I see they're on a pull-down menu. Aside from using the old flat logo, the sidebar contains some stuff that clutters things a bit (game series, gameplay, etcetera), especially since some of those things are fine just being on Entryway (the main page), and "Central processing" (general Doom wiki discussion) isn't so accessible. The current sidebar and top arrangement on MonoBook is simpler, highlighting the more important stuff without redundancy (user page is both by itself and in "more" on the top right). Who is like God? 17:41, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
To be fair, myk, all those things have always been in Quartz AFAICT, so they probably reflect the consensus among large gaming wikis.  My guess would be that, unlike large gaming wikis, we don't purposely try to attract new players or form a social network within Wikia, because Doom is so old that we assume the community is fairly static.  Therefore, we have no reason to work intensively with the staff to develop new MediaWiki customizations (see the Wikia listservs for everything you could ever want to know about that), so we shouldn't expect new features to make sense to us immediately.  I know I'll keep using Monobook until I seek the Havens — if it ain't broke, don't fix it.    Ryan W 19:33, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
More specific suggestions for the sidebar menus:
Gameplay:  Either remove the submenu for "Hazards" or add submenus for the primary topics also (e.g. weapons and monsters).
Top Content:  Put "random page" back in, which according to the listserv is used 10 times more often than any other toolbox link.
Top Content \ Editor's pick:  Name is misleading since it really means "edited the most times", not "hand-selected for quality" (e.g. allmusic.com).  Probably redundant with Special:Longpages anyway.
Doom Community:  Submenus should be entered by hand, if that isn't screamingly obvious.
Doom Community \ Websites:  Redundant with the "related communities" box below; a link called "Doom Community" should definitely lead to major Doom sites, not sites about other FPSes (the two do NOT overlap much, no matter what the staff says).
Wiki Community \ Featured users:  Inappropriate for this wiki, since it is primarily an encyclopedia, not primarily a social network (e.g. wikifur, travel, Star Wars Fanon).  Maybe replace it with a link to the gaming hub.  A tool for listing users by edit count is fine, but hardly important enough to link from every single article.
Ryan W 23:58, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
How about voting on which skin Doom Wiki should use by default? And if one of the "old" skins happens to win but Monaco or some other skin improves a whole lot in the future, we can always do another voting at that point, right?
And in case you happen to agree a vote is a good idea, I'll state my own opinion. After thoroughly testing the Monaco skin and comparing it with MonoBook, I'm still voting for MonoBook. IMO it currently is a more functional and clutter-free skin than Monaco. -- Janizdreg 03:39, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
If we do keep the Monaco skin for some reason, I hope that we can change it to the Sapphire theme, as that most matches with the look (color wise) we had before. This Brick one is hideous, and it clashes horribly with the content sections style.
Personally, I find the Monaco skin to be a slight case of style over substance, and plus I'm a minimalist at heart, so it's an easy vote for MonoBook for me. Nuxius 09:50, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
I'm setting the default skin back to MonoBook for now, since it was solely Kirkburn's decision to switch over to Monaco. We should first reach a consensus on what the default skin should be before we actually change it. -- Janizdreg 18:14, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Chex guy

I'm a little concerned about the user Chex guy. About 80-90% of his edits end up being reverted, deleted or otherwise undone. He's not a vandal though (his edits are more of the harmless but out of place -type), and a few of his edits have actually been slightly constructive and helpful. Unfortunately, overall he's doing this wiki a lot more harm than good.

I have no idea how these types of situations are usually handled, which is why I'm asking your help on deciding what to do. Personally I'm thinking about asking him politely to stop editing this wiki. On the other hand I'm not sure if we should simply let him continue editing and keep cleaning up his unworthwile contributions in the hopes that he might at some point make another useful edit. But yeah, penny for your thoughts. -- Janizdreg 06:32, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

It's not so much that he contradicts consensus (people do that when they're new) as that he doesn't explain himself: he uses no edit summaries, he never posts to talk pages when adding something unprecedented, and, if he joins a discussion at all, it's a monosyllabic restatement of his previous position without any line of reasoning.  In a scholarly project, it's difficult to give someone the benefit of the doubt when we have no idea what his plans are.
Logistically, also, given the level of activity on this site, one user creates a noticeable burden if all his edits have to be double-checked.  Common sense says that this is more likely to burn out a known good editor than to educate a dubious one whose RL life experiences have already failed to do so.
Absent evidence to the contrary, I tend to assume that User:Chex guy is like most computer users on Earth, and therefore that a given edit reflects only his personal opinions.  If this hasn't had any effect, then it may be time for stronger measures, as Janizdreg says.    Ryan W 02:21, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

CSS stuff

I imported Wikia's Common.css here since it improves the style/layout of this wiki a good deal (an example: before/after). If you notice any new style related issues that haven't occurred before, please report them here so I or some other admin can modify the CSS file accordingly and fix the problem. -- Janizdreg 23:41, 17 April 2008 (UTC)