Discussion of discussion of companies and fans [was: The TF Wiki: Feelings?]

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Nevermore
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Discussion of discussion of companies and fans [was: The TF Wiki: Feelings?]

Post by Nevermore »

So, one of our Wiki's regular editors posts this on the old Wikia Wiki:
Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal - Transformers Wiki - Teletraan I
I suspect what Mendel was pointing out was that there is no community on this wiki to make that decision, or object to it. So either a) the few members active here constitute a quorum, b) you wikia lot do. In either case there is a body that can accept or decline a proposal of reciprocal links. Such a decision needn't be permanent- if the community decided in the future and decided get rid of it (or add it,) they'd be free to do so.
You say 'leave the community here to decide,' but... you're pretty much it, aren't you? I mean, I don't see any editors in Recent Changes not also active on to TFWiki.net. (I might be missing someone, I'm vague on that sort of thing.)
I suggested reciprocal linking because I think it's the polite (and smart) thing to do, in both our cases.
I know at least one hardcore transfan who works seasonally on oil rigs- he'll come back in a couple weeks and be baffled; "Where did everybody go?"
As for you guys... I think you've dropped below the critical mass needed to sustain a community. That's happened before, the place was dead when Walky made it his pet cause in aught six. And people are more likely to find this site, to provide that spark of life, if we link to you.
(As blatantly spiteful as our deletion of many community-specific pages upon exodus was, the reasoned intent behind it was genuine; to give the wiki a fresh start- and maybe attract some of the editors who were put off by our way of doing things. But practically the first thing you did was RESTORE half of them, including the frelling POLICY pages-- and people were being given {{caption_bastard}} warnings and told "This is site policy" with no discussion of whether that policy should continue-- and all the editors who'd been put off by our community saw you enforcing the same rules... and they knew they weren't welcome. Despite significant schisms within Transfandom about this Wiki's approach to doing things, you managed to capture approximately none of the dissenting userbase when we left. (Maybe Rotty, I feel like I've seen him recently. I always liked Rotty...)
My point is- the group that left is not... replaceable. A good chunk are hardcores who've known one another since usenet in 1995. That is not a skill/knowledge/social base you can replace. We nuked all those community pages for a reason (other than giggling juvenile glee,) so that Wikia's Transformers community could become something else, so a new community could form, make it theirs and impose their own character on this wiki. Become something vital and different and complimentary to us-- maybe even something better. Instead this site is failing at being us.
Reciprical links wasn't a request for our benefit, it was an offer for your benefit. We'd prefer there was someplace valuable editors could go if they get banned on TFWiki.net instead of having their contributions vanish from the fandom. Twin Cities, each with its own character. As for your benefits... Google thinks we're one site. (Why why wouldn't it? The same week we appeared you changed your sitename to be the same as ours!) We are going to... uh... win. And while a link on our community portal page might not send many eyeballls your way in terms of quantity- the potential for capturing QUALITY editors through it-- people good enough to spark your own community, to give you a fighting chance-- is high.
But hey, if you want to come all "leave this place, never to return!" up at me, fine.
Proceed then, on your way to oblivion. (See you on page two of the Google search results!) -Derik 13:35, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
About five hours later, Derik was banned from the Wikia Wiki.
Block log - Transformers Wiki - Teletraan I
18:13, 8 October 2008 Sannse (Talk | contribs) blocked Derik (Talk | contribs) with an expiry time of 1 year (account creation disabled) ‎ (Your editing here is not in the best interests of this wiki. This includes bot edits to maintain deceptive templates that take people unexpectedly off-site)
"Deceptive templates"?
Neither Derik nor his (now also banned) bot Deceptitraan did such a thing.
Contributions - Transformers Wiki - Teletraan I
Contributions - Transformers Wiki - Teletraan I

So not only did Wikia ban him out of spite for stating the truth, they also completely fabricated a reason.
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Post by Cliffjumper »

INTERNET DRAMA IS EXCITING.

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Post by Denyer »

Eh. I think anyone with nous assumed from the beginning that third-party hosting would lead to problems. Now it's community vs. community, it's Fakespark take two.
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Post by Chris McFeely »

Heh, turned out Derik actually DID do it. Set it up months in advance. He's like a criminal mastermind.
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Post by Jaynz »

Denyer wrote:Eh. I think anyone with nous assumed from the beginning that third-party hosting would lead to problems. Now it's community vs. community, it's Fakespark take two.
Nah, no one's asked me to fund the set-up this time. :P

Really, though, I don't see a lot of 'outside of wikia' people all that supportive of the wikia site. Some people (like me) gave them their chance to see what would happen, and they proved themselves... shall we say... unworthy.
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Post by Nevermore »

Chris McFeely wrote:Heh, turned out Derik actually DID do it. Set it up months in advance. He's like a criminal mastermind.
So he made us look like idiots defending him and accusing Wikia of making up things which he actually DID. I feel used.
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Post by secretcode »

Honestly, it's just a ****ing Wiki. Hell, someone could post something completely insane and days later people will claim it's truth... Heh. Funny because that's what this situation is like.

And all this idiotic drama is just that. It's just constant bitching about the wiki's status. I thought post-move it'd end... Some people are never happy.
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Post by Denyer »

Chris McFeely wrote:Heh, turned out Derik actually DID do it. Set it up months in advance. He's like a criminal mastermind.
Done what, exactly?

Wonder if there's anything that could be done by a bot that couldn't be trivially restored...
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Post by Chris McFeely »

Denyer wrote:Done what, exactly?
Programmed a sort of "time bomb" into the episode navigation template which, after a certain date, caused the links to change from the wikia wiki to TFWIKI.
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Post by Halfshell »

The cheeky scamp.
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Post by Cliffjumper »

I'm currently failing to see what this actually has to do with TF media anymore... Can someone set me up a "Bitchy gossip and other boring fandom shite" forum I can punt this into?
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Post by Denyer »

I'm inclined to think fandom projects file better under the Transformers heading than General Discussion.
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Post by Halfshell »

I'd think they'd fit even better under Fandom...
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Post by Denyer »

Once it's moving again, that's going back to one forum with thread title tagging.

Conventions and other big things really don't fit under a creative heading...
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Post by Cliffjumper »

Denyer wrote:I'm inclined to think fandom projects file better under the Transformers heading than General Discussion.
Yup... so maybe a sub folder of the title suggested? This is just people bitching about who did what at some other website... This isn't really about the material or even particularly about the Wiki itself anymore. I seem to remember kicking Damolisher in the teeth for turning a more general TF comic into a discussion about particular people and their actions within fandom, with that person again not around to see what people are bitching about. I'm failing to see how this is any different.

If people are desperate to bitch and piss about what a user on some other site is about (although aren't we kinda not meant to do this? Like the way we try not to bang on about Seibertron?), I think booting this thing to Fandom/Other Projects is a good idea... I just fail to see how the latest tart drama is particularly relevant to this forum. Discussion about the quality, usefulness and whatever of the Wikia itself is Transformers General Discussion*. Discussion of the Ace Faces behind it and whatever crazy tricks and pathetic turf wars they've got going on is Transformers Fandom Discussion.

There are at least four totally unrelated Ideon clips on YouTube I haven't used yet. :p ;)

* = did you just change that? Or am I reaching Claypool levels of moderating competence?
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Post by Halfshell »

Denyer wrote:Once it's moving again, that's going back to one forum with thread title tagging.
Once what's moving, what is?
Conventions and other big things really don't fit under a creative heading...
You realise that changing the forum name counts as cheating, right? And a tacit admission that you're losing the argument. ;)
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Post by Denyer »

Brend wrote:Once what's moving
The creative forum / section.
Cliffjumper wrote:I think booting this thing to Fandom/Other Projects is a good idea...
That forum's going to be exclusively creative works, with a specific focus on getting things onto the site.
did you just change that?
Yup. This was always intended as the 'catch-all' forum for TF related stuff. It got titled 'Media' to differentiate from the Toys and News forums, esp. as the former has its own specific function subforums -- things don't sort very well onto a linear tree model; hence the kitbashes link in Toys.
I'm failing to see how this is any different.
Starting threads on Raksha is dragging up shit that was mostly ancient before we got a real site started. We didn't block threads on the Seibertron store, and there was some discussion of the Allspark takeover when it happened IIRC. (Though sites were, in general, in their own little worlds and largely unaware of each other at the time.)
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Post by Cliffjumper »

This isn't TF-related anymore. It's people-related. It's only the last page it's wobbled off course on.

The Seibertron store stuff was different, as Ryan was ripping people off and being evasive about it and, IIRC, deleted threads and banning people for asking about it. Whatever pressure anyone could bring to bear was needed there; not the case here, though.

I really don't remember much discussion about the Allspark thing - we didn't have much of a membership overlap (as in active, rather than the people who sign up everywhere to aggressively protect 'their' [Seeker Name][Random Number] screen-name) - was it before my time?

A guy from another site who about 8 people here know to some tiny degree has sabotaged (in what sounds like a small, reversible way) what seems to be an obsolete and dying site. He may or may not have fibbed about doing it. I'm not really seeing how this is particularly relevant to Transformers discussion, or to Transformers Archive discussion.

Handily moving the goalposts and adding "Chat about... the fandom" to the description is an interesting move, though. I just want to know straight, basically - is petty open bitching about users on other sites okay? I'm not fussed either way, there's a bunch of twats I don't mind openly laying into for various nebulous things that have little or no impact on (or interest to) the people reading these forums. I'd just like to know where exactly we stand on this sort of thing.
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Post by Halfshell »

Cliffjumper wrote:This isn't TF-related anymore. It's people-related.
Not even that anymore. It's devolved into a discussion about what does or doesn't constitute Transformers discussion.

Which definitely doesn't. That's what the Site Feedback (or whatever it's called this hour) forum is for.
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Post by Denyer »

Cliffjumper wrote:I'd just like to know where exactly we stand on this sort of thing.
Personal judgement calls, same as always. There's been discussion of BotTalk, the fan club, stuff like 1 2 3 4 and any amount of other stuff. Nor's staff here wandering off into conversation about what goes where exactly new.
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