Grand Theft Wiki talk:Staff Noticeboard/archive1

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Welcome to the Grand Theft Wiki Staff Noticeboard. This is a space for staff to issue notices and invite discussion amongst staff. Here, staff can explain recent events, things to watch out for and potential changes; or request comments, suggestions and ideas on anything on the Wiki.

This page is to be edited by Staff only. If you would like to discuss an issue mentioned here, please use the talk page.

Please start a new section for every new topic, and don't forget to indent properly and sign your comments.


Task List

I'd like to remind all our Staff of the Task List I created. This outlines the various cleanup and administrative tasks for admins and editors. Pick some tasks that you can regularly check on, and try to keep on top of those. Managers should ensure that all the tasks on that page are looked at periodically, if not regularly. Feel free to add more to the list, comment on the talk page, or discuss here - Gboyers talk 01:44, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Orphaned pages

Something we need to work on is Orphaned Pages (Lonely Pages). These are 141 pages which nothing links to (excluding categories). Categories are NOT the main way of navigating the Wiki, they're meant to be used to "find more stuff like this". Articles are the main way to find things, and lists can be very effective if used well. So can we start spamming links to some of these orphaned pages? It's pretty much a one-off job, then we can just keep an eye on it. Thanks - Gboyers talk 01:50, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Potential Candidate Administrators

I'd like to suggest the following users be considered for candidacy for advancement to Administrator status:

In my opinion, these editors seem to make very good edits, handle things in a mature manner, and generally work to improve the wiki and the community. EganioTalk 03:05, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

We should probably hold a big event to appeal to members to try to become staff. We do need new admins, and it is best for us to have the biggest selection to pick from. We should give everyone the opportunity to become staff, and show them how they can do the right things to be considered. This is not just a ploy to cover the Task List, but a genuine opening with real opportunity. I think this would be a great initiative for the site, the team, and (most importantly) the visitors. Don't offer anyone the jobs yet, we'll fix up all the recruitment pages then start blasting the word out. Gboyers talk 03:17, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

E-mail from Sukhoi-35BM

I would like to post here a copy, word-for-word, of an e-mail I received today from Sukhoi-35BM. I responded to his e-mail on his talk page, since he does not have e-mail activated on his Grand Theft Wiki user account.

So...I was banned without warning? Dude, the other admin was
a) being a cocksucker
and
b) abusing his power. He was talking down to me, to I talked to him like I would to any cocksucker. I have nothing against you, but perhaps better selection of admins is necessary...

I've been wanting to use that template for a while, now ;) --GuildKnightTalk2me 03:46, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

How sweet! I'm surprised he could tell that I'm a "cocksucker" just from my photo! Must be psychic. Anyway, I think I'm going to take a hiatus from here for a while...feeling a little exposed and unwelcome. EganioTalk 06:03, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

GK: Spot on again, proving I've made the right choice. Ed: Don't take it personally - of course he's going to be upset if he's suspended. In fact, looking at his comments (and the reason he got banned) he's the type of person that IS going to cause a fuss. We'll let him make a formal complaint, and we'll handle it properly, so you have nothing to worry about. If he kicks up a fuss again, he's out. I remind you both that this page is public, so keep it professional. Gboyers talk 12:37, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Community Portal

The Community Portal needs a bit of a re-think. At the moment its just news, bulletins and a few basic instructions. It needs to be the first place people go for non-encyclopaedic content, such as help/instructions/tools, discussion/forums/talkpages, userpages/editorials/forums, info/staff/policy. It shouldn't just be a collection or widgets, nor a collection of links. It needs to be well laid out, user-friendly and accessible, without being overcomplicated or useless. I'd appreciate it if someone could sketch up some plans for this in their user space, and then we'll see where we go from there.

This fits into the idea of having portals for each subject, and also the heightened amount of community discussion. Remember that this is a wiki all about information, so proactive discussion is key - we don't want or need loads of fancy widgets or multicoloured fun sections; however we still need to engage our community and provide all the support we can for people to extend & improve our information. Gboyers talk 03:14, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Just wanted to point something out: I think if the Community Portal is intended to be the first place people go for non-encyclopedic content (to use Gboyers' words), then it should be more prominently displayed on the main page. As it stands, it is at the very bottom. I think in the interest of user-friendliness, it should be at the top with or under the Contents heading. We've already got many of the principal aspects of the Community Portal (e.g. Help, HowTo, Editing) listed there...maybe we should consolidate/expand on the main page. Thoughts? EganioTalk 07:45, 9 July 2008 (UTC)
Also, please see GuildKnight's Sandbox and the concomitant discussion. She's got some great stuff (as usual!). EganioTalk 08:01, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Yes, the Community Portal needs to be more prominently positioned, more heavily promoted, and more commonly used. However, it would be silly to do that with the Community Portal in its current state. This should happen only after the new portal has been implemented. I've made a couple of edits to GK's sandbox, and it's looking pretty good. I'd like to keep thinking what can (usefully) go on that page, without duplicating the Main Page. Gboyers talk 04:12, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Swearing

A couple of users have been writing mission pages which include a lot of inappropriate/informal language and swearing. An example of this is here. I deal with this whenever I see it, but keep your eyes peeled for walkthroughs that are worse than just badly-structured. Gboyers talk 02:47, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

I wasn't actually aware that the word used there is considered swearing... the ignorant American, again!  ;) --GuildKnightTalk2me 04:02, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

Cleanup

I notice the Cleanup category has been growing recently. Can we make a big effort this week to bring it down to a manageable size? Most of them are simple cases of structuring it like a wiki, but some of them may be a little trickier. If we can get rid of all the easy ones this week that would be awesome - Gboyers talk 02:49, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

I've been trying to tackle some of the articles in the cleanup category, but every time I remove one, it seems new ones pop up! So far, we're still around 60 articles...I'll keep it up, but will need some help! EganioTalk 23:09, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Page Naming

We need a bit of a think on page naming. Do we use Michelle (IV) or Mickey (GTA IV). If we use it for other games, do we switch to Michelle (SA) (which is a city) or Michelle (GTA SA) or Michelle (GTA San Andreas)? And what if that character is in more than one game, and still needs to be disambiguated? Gboyers talk 00:19, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

I am of the opinion that we should use as detailed desciptions as possible, while maintaining brevity. Therefore, I would opt for Michelle (GTA IV), Michelle (GTA SA), Michelle (GTA LCS), etc...I think it's fine to use shortened versions of game names in titles, which can be expanded upon in the article...the only question is, do we use colons, i.e. (GTA:SA), or just leave it as a space?
Hopefully I'm not misunderstanding your point, but when a character shows up in more than one game, I think it's fine to leave their nomenclature centered around the game in which they play the biggest role. There should be references to their appearances in other games within the article, but I don't think including every appearance on a disambiguation page is the way to go. We can use in-article text and categories to show that a particular character has appeared in more than one game, and should defer to their most prominent appearance as default. Thoughts? EganioTalk 21:56, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

Watching Talk:Michelle (IV)

Gboyers and I have had an extended discussion about how to "protect" users from finding out about the Karen spoiler. We have decided that the Michelle (IV) page should remain protected for the release of the PC version so that new users that don't know about the situation don't place Karen info on the page. The problem that arises with that is that users that don't know about the Karen spoiler can still read the talk page (the place that new edits MUST be posted for an admin to put on the page). We are in hope that users will see the line that says: "For spoiler discussion see this talk page" and know to post Karen info there. However, in case this fails, Gboyers agrees with my idea that if staff could all keep an eye on talk:Michelle (IV) and move any Karen info ASAP, and inform the user who posted it, that hopefully we can keep accidental viewing to a minimum. (BTW, Gboyers stated that although this isn't the usual thing to put on the SN, he agreed to put it here on this occasion). Thoughts? Biggest GTA Fan EverTalk 10:46, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

I didn't state that at all - it's the perfect thing to put here. I meant that we wouldn't normally cause such a fuss over a talk page containing spoilers. Usually you read a talk page at your own risk - for example, if we discussed things that got deleted (eg swearing), the discussion surrounding that usually stays on the talk page no matter what. We can't go round cleansing things, but keeping an eye on it is probably the best course of action for this one.Gboyers talk 10:54, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Main Page Renaming

As you can see in the discussion here, one official Wikia Helper (volunteer intersite admin) decided to rename our Main Page to "Grand Theft Auto wiki" without our consent, and without any discussion in our community. This is because Wikia want all the main pages to match the name of the wiki, for popularity in search engines, which means more money in advertising for them. However, I feel Main Page better serves the title of that page within this wiki. Discussion on what to name the page is going on here. I reverted the move, since it wasn't discussed with us beforehand. If this is repeated without our consent, please revert it. I have protected the ability to move the front page (anyone can still edit). I will not have Wikia interfering like this again, especially not for advertising or financial purposes. Gboyers talk 17:56, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Staff Colours

I have introduced staff colours. Now, any link to your user page (not talk page) will be coloured bold green (for managers), bold blue (for admins/sysopns) or grey/italic (wikia staff). I can alter the colours and styles infinitely, so let me know if you think they should be changed. At the moment every link is coloured, but I could restrict it to recentchanges/history/diff type pages (to highlight where staff are). I doubt this will work in every browser, but it's still nice to have for who it does work for. Let me know what you think of the idea, and the colours. FYI I've forced links to my name to be in lowercase (since my name is G Boyers not Gboyers, so gboyers is fine) - so I can also add querks like that to your name if required. This is a manual process, so has to be changed for any new/leaving staff. Gboyers talk 00:00, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Firstly, I checked your edit to that page, you did do it for me, but it didn't work (my signature is always bold, so check recent changes). Secondly, I think the point of this is to make staff stand out to other users, RC is full of blue links, and bold blue for pages your watching, so I think there might be a colour that would stand out a bit more. Otherwise, it's great! Biggest GTA Fan EverTalk 00:14, 8 January 2009 (UTC)
I made it bold and darker blue as a start, as it stands out without being massively different. However I think two stand-out colours would not be too many. What would you suggest? It couldn't be red or blue, but it could be orange, purple, pink, light blue, brown. I'm not sure about black, because that could be confused as being less of a link, since it isn't obvious that you can click on it. We could use a darkish grey though. Alternatively Admins and Managers could use variations on the same colour - such as green for one; bold+green for the other. Lots of possibilities! FYI I'm removing Eganio and Guildknight from this system, as I'm rendering them as inactive staff (unless/until they return). Gboyers talk 03:35, 8 January 2009 (UTC)
EDIT: I fixed you BGTAFE, and made admins orange! It stands out doesn't it? When we've decided on colours, we should redesign the staff templates & page to match (how pretty!). And then we can fix the promotions procedure (might just make it "Managers decide" again) and bring some more staff on board. Gboyers talk 03:45, 8 January 2009 (UTC)
What has the promotion procedure become? It is managers decide isn't it? As for Eganio and GK, I agree that they are inactive. Just FYI, Eganio has edited three times since he disappeared and one edit was to a user talk page. He said something about "sorry for the delayed reply, I've been busy", so it seems like he plans on coming back. GK is on sometimes and has said on her userpage that she's busy and is coming back (you probably already know most of that, but anyway). The orange does look better, and the templates/colour matching sounds like a good idea. Biggest GTA Fan EverTalk 03:58, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Two things. Firstly, MediaWiki:Monaco.css still says ADMIN - Blue - bold, (you didn't change it when you changed the colour) and Not talk page. The other thing is, why did you force talk page links into lowercase? I noticed when in RC I saw a link to User talk:A-Dust. Biggest GTA Fan EverTalk 07:34, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

I was only going to finanlise the comments etc on monaco.css when we'd decided on colours etc. Currently we're still in "testing it out" mode, unless everyone agrees. The talk page link lowercase one was cos I must have copied the wrong bit from my line (which is lowercase for reasons I explained earlier). Feel free to fix both of those problems (since you asked me first)! Gboyers talk 11:41, 8 January 2009 (UTC)