Posted May 22, 2016 Hello everyone! So we've had a rough ride with the Wurmpedia over the last few weeks. First, we had a website move that did not go as planned initially. Just yesterday we had an update to the MediaWiki software that failed and required a bit of time to revert back to an older version. I'd like to thank @DarylDarkfire for all the work he's put in to getting things moved and for getting us back up and running again. We will be doing the update, but to avoid downtime we will be doing it on a test instance first as to avoid such issues as we experienced over the last 24 hours. That said, we are aware that there are still small issues with the layout of the main page, such as the logo and the left-hand menu disappearing. These issues are being worked on and we hope to have everything back to normal soon. With that out of the way, I wanted to mention some of the changes we've made to the Wurmpedia team. @Marni has stepped down from his role as Wurmpedia Manager due to a promotion at work. While I am sad to see him step away from the helm, I do wish him congratulations on the promotion and the best of luck! With his departure, I have been promoted to Wurmpedia Manager and will continue the work where he left off. My goal is to continue working toward improving the quality of information on the Wurmpedia and bringing a better experience to players new and old. With my promotion, I have tapped @sEeDliNgS to step up as Assistant Wurmpedia Manager! She will be running along side me as we move forward with the wiki. Our first task will be to go through the account requests which have sat due to site-related issues and process them all. I will be relying heavily on Seedlings as I also adjust to my other roles within the team, but with both of us and our awesome Wurmpedia Assistants, I feel that the Wurmpedia will start marching forward again. Finally, I've also posted up the Wurmpedia Guidelines. I hope that these help clarify the rules of the road when it comes to the Wurmpedia and can be used as a base going forward. We have thankfully had very few incidents requiring moderation on the Wurmpedia, but as we open things up more it is important to have set rules as to avoid any confusion. Thank you all for your patience as we get things rolling again and congratulations again Seedlings! Edit The client links from the side bar (and one more) are as follows: Stable Client [Live] Unstable Client [Live] Stable Client [Test] Unstable Client [Test] 12 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted May 22, 2016 Congrats Seedlings, a very good choice for the role! =D And yes, Keenan for all the things continues, yay 3 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted May 22, 2016 I'm missing part of links that were on left side of wurmpedia pages. There are no more links to wurm main site, to wurm unlimited part of wiki, links to clients ... This is all I can see on left side of screen: Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted May 22, 2016 10 minutes ago, MarkSilard said: I'm missing part of links that were on left side of wurmpedia pages. There are no more links to wurm main site, to wurm unlimited part of wiki, links to clients ... This is all I can see on left side of screen: That is part of the issue that is being fixed by Daryl. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted May 22, 2016 So does this mean we have a chance at having a wiki again this time around since Marni stepped down? As long as you require applications, no matter how gracious you are at providing accounts, the Wurmpedia will be a manual and not a wiki—something that requires anyone be able to edit (i.e. open registration). Even before Marni was given the WM position we didn't have hardly any destructive editing or edit war incidents—both of which being unsubstantiated issues thrown around in order to justify the new micromanagement policies. At the very least, open registration back up to where all anyone has to do is PM you stating they want an account and you provide them with editor privileges (like before Marni took over). I guarantee you more people would be willing to help as long as they're not bound to these terms: Quote Submitting an application does not guarantee acceptance and continuous service is required to retain editor status. Accounts may be reverted to standard status after extended inactivity without any notice. http://www.wurmpedia.com/index.php/Wurmpedia:Editor Requiring these same people to give "continuous service"—otherwise they lose their account—means that many who would otherwise help edit here and there are not willing to become an editor. And no, the Wurmpedia sub-forum is not a replacement for being able to edit, considering it's a nuisance to have to ask someone to fix something rather than being able to do it yourself when you see an issue. This results in Wurmpedia actually getting less editing done to it than if the manual's (wiki's) registration were open (or at least very nearly so, as I suggested above). The current editors would in all likelihood maintain their current level of support regardless of the proposed change, so in the end everyone would actually benefit from returning Wurmpedia to a wiki. Lastly, before anyone says how easy it is to get an editor account, please note that I refuse to beg for my editing privileges back after they were stripped from me and many others last July. Not to mention that having to apply to edit a wiki is in opposition to what a wiki stands for; so, on principle I refuse to apply and I know there are others who feel similarly. 2 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted May 22, 2016 I'd like to see the wiki be an actual wiki again too. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted May 22, 2016 7 hours ago, MarkSilard said: I'm missing part of links that were on left side of wurmpedia pages. There are no more links to wurm main site, to wurm unlimited part of wiki, links to clients ... This is all I can see on left side of screen: I have added the client links to my main post above, and included the new unstable test client (new render engine). As Zachariah mentioned, these are elements we are working to restore. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted May 22, 2016 1 hour ago, NESGamepro said: I'd like to see the wiki be an actual wiki again too. if you want to it hard enough,host a new wurmpedia that its actually about giving information to people and promote it in the forums and ingame im sure youll have a lot more and better editors than in the current thing. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted May 22, 2016 3 hours ago, Laiwyn said: So does this mean we have a chance at having a wiki again this time around since Marni stepped down? As long as you require applications, no matter how gracious you are at providing accounts, the Wurmpedia will be a manual and not a wiki—something that requires anyone be able to edit (i.e. open registration). Even before Marni was given the WM position we didn't have hardly any destructive editing or edit war incidents—both of which being unsubstantiated issues thrown around in order to justify the new micromanagement policies. At the very least, open registration back up to where all anyone has to do is PM you stating they want an account and you provide them with editor privileges (like before Marni took over). I guarantee you more people would be willing to help as long as they're not bound to these terms: http://www.wurmpedia.com/index.php/Wurmpedia:Editor Requiring these same people to give "continuous service"—otherwise they lose their account—means that many who would otherwise help edit here and there are not willing to become an editor. And no, the Wurmpedia sub-forum is not a replacement for being able to edit, considering it's a nuisance to have to ask someone to fix something rather than being able to do it yourself when you see an issue. This results in Wurmpedia actually getting less editing done to it than if the manual's (wiki's) registration were open (or at least very nearly so, as I suggested above). The current editors would in all likelihood maintain their current level of support regardless of the proposed change, so in the end everyone would actually benefit from returning Wurmpedia to a wiki. Lastly, before anyone says how easy it is to get an editor account, please note that I refuse to beg for my editing privileges back after they were stripped from me and many others last July. Not to mention that having to apply to edit a wiki is in opposition to what a wiki stands for; so, on principle I refuse to apply and I know there are others who feel similarly. I'm not entirely concerned with whether or not the Wurmpedia lives up to the proper idea of a wiki. I'm concerned with the content of the Wurmpedia and the experience new players receive when they go to the knowledge resource provided to them by the owners of the game they are playing. There should be no mistaking what the Wurmpedia is: It is an official resource, hosted and maintained by Code Club, where players are granted the ability to help contribute. It is in no way different than the forums we are posting on, which is also an official resource and bound to official rules as a result. 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted May 22, 2016 (edited) 58 minutes ago, Keenan said: I'm not entirely concerned with whether or not the Wurmpedia lives up to the proper idea of a wiki. I'm concerned with the content of the Wurmpedia and the experience new players receive when they go to the knowledge resource provided to them by the owners of the game they are playing. There should be no mistaking what the Wurmpedia is: It is an official resource, hosted and maintained by Code Club, where players are granted the ability to help contribute. It is in no way different than the forums we are posting on, which is also an official resource and bound to official rules as a result. In case anyone is confused by this what Keenan is specifically talking about is removing a lot of the untested data from wiki pages, and replacing it with the primary information that new players would need to stream line the process for them. An example of this would be removing data such as "at 67 ropemaking with an 80ql ropetool the chance of creating a cordage rope is 83%" and replacing it with the very base essential information such as the very minimum skill needed to create an item. The objective, as I understand it, is to make the wiki information newbie friendly, so a new player doesn't look up an item and see that it takes 29, 43, 67, 81, etc, experience to create it (when the minimum may be much lower) and be immediately overwhelmed or lost in the data. The surplus of such data could, however, be added to the discussion page for said item or skill. Hope that makes sense. Edited May 22, 2016 by Slickshot 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted May 22, 2016 3 hours ago, Keenan said: I'm not entirely concerned with whether or not the Wurmpedia lives up to the proper idea of a wiki. I'm concerned with the content of the Wurmpedia and the experience new players receive when they go to the knowledge resource provided to them by the owners of the game they are playing. There should be no mistaking what the Wurmpedia is: It is an official resource, hosted and maintained by Code Club, where players are granted the ability to help contribute. It is in no way different than the forums we are posting on, which is also an official resource and bound to official rules as a result. Well...having standards for quality on a wiki, and open registration are not mutually exclusive. Though, I see you're telling all of the players to deal with it so I suppose our exchange is over. 4 hours ago, Tpikol said: if you want to it hard enough,host a new wurmpedia that its actually about giving information to people and promote it in the forums and ingame im sure youll have a lot more and better editors than in the current thing. According to a recent staff post in a thread somewhere around the time that the Wurmpedia was down for a bit, linking to non-official Wurm Online wikis are discouraged, so it wouldn't be hard to imagine there would be a new rule banning linking to outside wikis if an unofficial one ever got any traction. At any rate, this is all hypothetical. I don't expect that anyone, including myself, is going to start another wiki—mostly because this is a simple issue with a simple fix but creating a new wiki from scratch is a massive undertaking. And besides, isn't WO work enough? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted May 22, 2016 4 minutes ago, Laiwyn said: According to a recent staff post in a thread somewhere around the time that the Wurmpedia was down for a bit, linking to non-official Wurm Online wikis are discouraged, so it wouldn't be hard to imagine there would be a new rule banning linking to outside wikis if an unofficial one ever got any traction. At any rate, this is all hypothetical. I don't expect that anyone, including myself, is going to start another wiki—mostly because this is a simple issue with a simple fix but creating a new wiki from scratch is a massive undertaking. And besides, isn't WO work enough? Since I'm being indirectly quoted out of context in this paragraph, I discouraged that specific wiki. We get numerous complaints as they've tried to model it directly after the Wurmpedia and yet the information is horrible at best. People are constantly asking me to update those pages, when we have nothing to do with it. If you wish to run a fan-made wiki, all the power to you. Just ensure you follow the fan site policies. 3 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted May 22, 2016 Congrats on your promotion, Keenan and thank you for all the hard work you put in. Congrats to Seedlings too - good choice and happy wurmpedia'ing ! Hope all goes smoothly and would be happy to have my application for being an editor considered - it is the "sat" pile - hope you find it. 2 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted May 24, 2016 On 5/22/2016 at 5:10 PM, Baloo said: Congrats on your promotion, Keenan and thank you for all the hard work you put in. Congrats to Seedlings too - good choice and happy wurmpedia'ing ! Hope all goes smoothly and would be happy to have my application for being an editor considered - it is the "sat" pile - hope you find it. Thanks, @Baloo! We have a bit of an issue to solve with creating accounts before we can continue, but I do have your application and you are next on the list The minute the issue is resolved will be the minute your account is up and ready to go. 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted May 26, 2016 While working with Daryl on some of the lingering issues, I've managed to get all the pending accounts created. Those who asked for and qualified for editor should now have that role granted. If you asked for editor and did not have enough play time, do check your email. Temporary passwords are in your emails. If you already had an account and just requested editor access, I did a password reset on your account as well. Please take a moment to review the guidelines linked in my original post here. Thank you! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
