User blog:CK/Wiki Improvements

Hello to anyone reading this. I apologize in advance if I ramble or if things don't make sense in this blog, I have those problems a bit. I'll try to put a summary at the bottom, but feel free to ask any questions you may have.

So, you all probably know that the network had a 20-or-so day outage in August. Right before that happened, Hat Pop had announced her retirement. So, during that outage, for the first time in a while I had seriously considered leaving the wiki (if it came back up), or at the least resigning from my rights. While I currently have no plans to do so, it may happen in the future if my life picks up speed, or I feel like I am of no more use to the wiki and it's not enjoyable for me.

Before the outage the drama had been in full force, and while I'm glad it hasn't persisted since, one point that I think about that certain users made is how I'm a "bad admin" and how I haven't done anything good. I'm not going to try to prove myself but listing what I've done as an admin and a user for the past three years, but I do think I should do more, that I could do more when it comes to improvement of the wiki/database, not as much on the community side. So, for months I've thought off-and-on about what could be done to improve the wiki, but unfortunately I haven't thought of much- though there's plenty to be done. Often times when I do think of something the idea feels overwhelming so I forget about it, but one persists and may be the most overwhelming thing I could think of.

My main idea: Another final solution
I would like to improve the wiki by having some sort of Final Solution, as there are still a ton of articles that are very poorly written and could be improved or deleted to improve the standard of article on the wiki. The problem I have is- How can I initiate some super-large scale project like a Final solution and execute it efficiently, but also give our small community a chance to improve the targeted articles? Sure, most of them would be deleted anyways, but I'd at least like to give the community a chance to improve them.

A fair point from the past was that last year's "final solution" wasn't very effective, and I'd have to agree with that. The idea was good, but the admins were unorganized, and trying to sift through 500+ articles and act is a problem when nobody knows what they're doing or supposed to be doing. A big part of that failure was likely because I was stressing myself out too much and trying to do everything, when I knew Ed, Weez and Ninj were willing to help. I'm a perfectionist at heart, but I should realize by now that doing everything myself hasn't been good for the wiki.

This idea would be even worse if we didn't have a good plan going into it- as I've estimated probably 1,000 articles would be affected or looked over. Almost 200 stubs, 750 LQAs, everything that qualifies in the deletion category, and probably the 1,000 shortest pages on the wiki along with any other discovered articles that need fixing/deletion such as double redirects. 550 articles are under 1,000 bytes, which isn't very much (especially since infoboxes take up a lot of bytes)- A Jedi's Journey is only 1,200 bytes.

Closing/TL;DR
So I do truly want to help the wiki and be able to be a productive and helpful admin while I'm still around. I want to because I still care about this place and the people in it. I just can't think up/do everything myself, nor do I want to. So I'm asking for your help and for a positive discussion. What do you think about another Final Solution, and how do you think it should be done that keeps it efficient (so it doesn't end as another unfinished project) while also giving you, the community a chance to get involved and expand articles that you get inspired for?

In addition, what other ideas do you have for the wiki? You can put any and all ideas in the comments for things that you think would be good and productive for the wiki, though the one thing I ask is that you don't intentionally start drama (i.e. "demote the corrupt admins"). I'll likely remove those comments because I'm being serious here, and I'd like to an actual creative discussion for once instead of a nasty drama section.

Thanks all in advance,   C  K   Sysop / BOBmaster ? 08:29, 30 September 2017 (UTC)

P.S. On another note, I'm hoping to actually write The Secret War in coming months, so keep an eye on that! It'd be my first written story on the wiki since I've had anxiety about story writing since I joined because I could never live up to legends like Bro/Swiss, and I was overly afraid of breaking continuity.

Discussion

 * Like I said, the final solution idea is the largest and most persistent idea I've had over recent months, but there's plenty to be done around the wiki. The To-do list still exists. I also think the mainpage could use an update, possibly removing the The More You Know and News sections, though I'd prefer a better plan to keep TMYK active instead of removing it all together. I know the FS idea is going to be hard to plan out, and extremely tedious for admins or whoever is involved to carry out, but I think it should be done. Because if we don't do it now, then who will? I just don't have it in me to plan something so large and do it myself, so I'd really love all of your help.   C  K   Sysop / BOBmaster ? 08:29, 30 September 2017 (UTC)
 * You cant make a new final solution before you delet these --QP.png QUACKERPINGU WITH BIG LETTERS!   (talk).   Contributions   A link  Quackerpingu2.png 09:10, 30 September 2017 (UTC)
 * No user has ever argued in history that you have done absolutely nothing at all during the past few years that is good and that all you've done was bad - and the fact you were elected administrator and then later promoted bureaucrat proves it - the argument has been about your bad deeds that indeed do exist just like your good deeds and whether you've acted properly in times of crisis or times of drama when you should have taken certain action in order to prevent further spillover of the drama. You have for the past few years been characterized as being condescending and disrespectful towards a few users - I acknowledge your recent improvement in understanding the feelings of others and trying to do what's best for the wiki and its users without trying to stir or cause even more drama. That being said all users are going to recognize you've done your best to try to make this wiki a better place even during times we disagreed with you or in our eyes failed.
 * My ideas for the community are simply more democratization - regular users should have more right and say over wiki things and they should be able to elect their own private representative who can stand up for them in the face of administrators. I also believe Requests for Adminship must permanently be open and it's up to all users (regular and administrator) to decide who gets promoted, whether they should even get promoted and when they should get promoted. It should be up to all users to decide whether there are enough administrators or not and whether somebody is qualified or not. I also believe the Country Policy should be amended according to what I proposed several months ago, that Wikia Policy should be repealed or at least changed to a policy about other wikis plagiarizing our content. I think regular users should have some sort of ability to control administrator behavior and make sure things don't get out of hand.
 * That being said, I support your idea for a brand new Final Solution and concur that last year's Final Solution was ineffective and did not end well, and I'm willing to contribute to this new Final Solution. -- Penstubal (Talk) (Edits) 09:54, 30 September 2017 (UTC)
 * I know that you guys will prepare for the Final Solution, so I will leave you up to this. Please take your time on doing the final situation. Although the connection was mostly the wiki network's fault, it should be fixed and all end immediately. The reason I brought that up was because you brought that there has been a loss of connection for 20 days.-- Drunk science.gif I FEEL GR8 M8 MLG LOL. Wanna Chat? -Mcdonalds394 2016.png    13:02, 10 October 2017 (UTC)


 * I believed the Final Solution scheme to be an ongoing thing, but maybe it should be 'revived' so to speak. But the problem with it is that users are simply not interested in improving random articles. It feels like a chore pretty much. On top of that users, for the most part, are already fresh out of ideas and the creativity of the community is very low. I'm not tryna crap on its revival, but those are the really important issues with it that need to be individually tackled. In general I feel like it's an impossible mission to cling on to an era that has gone past its sell-by date (by that I mean the world's interest in Club Penguin in general). I'm not really being helpful here, but that's because I'm lacking ideas myself. I just wanted to get those points out so we can discuss it and then hopefully that can lead somewhere. -- [[Image:Ninj Xmas Sig.PNG|Special:Contributions/Ninjinian]] ¤   (  User page! ) (  Talk page. ) 00:42, 12 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Good points... would it be better just to complete something like the Delet list and just delete all of the articles at the end of the year (or some point in the future) if they still apply? Would the community be alright with that, and would the other admins be willing to participate? If so, there are probably other things we'd need to specify and prep for too.   C  K   Sysop / BOBmaster ? 04:12, 12 October 2017 (UTC)