General Questions and Comments

  • Yes, I noticed that some people, not the two of you by the way, did a lot of "damage" to the Wiki. I did not have the time to work on it over the weekend, but if I find that someone has gone to far, I'll give him/her a week off from the Wiki. Alas not everyone it communicating with his fellow wiki-workers. :S


    I cannot say my entries are perfect (after all I learned English in school not as native speaker) but I think it's not too much to ask to at least get spelling, capitalization and punctuation right.


    Do you guys think I should just block writers who do not honour this rule for a day or more?

  • Everyone has permission to edit WikiRaider - all you need is an account methinks.


    I think a good idea would be to change the WikRaider options - don't allow any edits from non-members, and require all members and new members to have a membership on the forums, that way we have means of contact, should anything go amiss, and need to give them word of text. Also, it would enable us to give them the low down on the do's and don'ts and what's acceptable and what's not on WikiRaider.


    I know that Wikipedia has done the first idea; requiring a membership to edit. Furthermore, since email activation is required for membership on the forums, I think the activation should be from the administrator, so we know who's joining. I mean, who's to say that someone could just sign up on the forums and go straight to WikiRaider before any of us even notices?


    I think those are some good ideas, but that's just me. Ostercy, TRG, what do you think about that? TRG, as to your question, I believe a week would be more suitable. It'd give the editors time to gather facts and decipher them from fact or rumor, [hehe] .

  • I think the present joining system for Wikiraider is fine; make people have a username and an email address.


    Darth Max did something unusual though. They put in something that was speculation (temporarily), which is fine as far as it goes provided there are "editors" at WikiRaider to catch the error. The speculation was then pointed out to DM and they were asked for references/sources in the article discussion section. However DM ignored the request for some reason (maybe they didn't see it?), and just reinstated the speculation. In that case, where someone has been warned but ignores the warning, then maybe a day's ban for them to think about it is appropriate. Longer term bans should be reserved for persistent offenders and should be reviewed regularly to give people a second or third or fourth chance. Where people disagree about Wiki entries, then reference to source material generally ought to clear the dispute up. The "you are banned forever" route is best left to the more "macho" websites; apart from anything else it makes the "banner" look petty and stupid and has no real effect. :rulez


    On the whole I think that WikiRaider should be open, and provided someone has registered properly they should be allowed to have a go at writing for the Wiki. It would be a shame to squash natural enthusiasm with draconian rules or with snotty editorial comments. There shouldn't be any problem provided there is some sort of sanction for ignoring the "editors", and the "sanction" should on the whole be as mild as possible. The sanction should get people's attention, not alienate them. There's already too much harsh and biased administration on the TR forums and on some other TR Wikis by people with an inflated sense of their own power and importance. I don't think WikiRaider should go down the same route, but should proceed by negotiation rather than by tyranny. It should be welcoming, not elitist. :camp


    That's my opinion at any rate. :sun:

  • (written before ostercys posting)


    Everyone who has registered to the Wiki may edit content that has not been locked by a sysop (by me). (Side note: In case something needs to be edited that has been locked by my you could post your corrections in the discussion or here in the forum for me to read.)


    There are two minor problems with your suggestion Catracoth,
    1. I would need to activate each wiki account manually (I could maybe write a script, but the Wiki is running on another server... big problem with synchronization.)
    2. I guess that many (some of them useful) writers would think this procedure unnerving and not become a writer at all.



    I will check out alternatives (like contacting the "wrongdoers" by email and blocking their accounts till the message sent to them has been acknowledged).

  • That's my opinion at any rate. :sun:


    And I agree with it. I know that I may also have tendencies to tyranny from time to time, but when confronted with many newbies there are times when you just have enough. (sorry :o) ) But overall I welcome new users and I think they should be guided in the right direction. Many can become useful once they get the hang of it.


    So far life-long bans have only been given out to real spammers: commercial, non-tr and such that think it's funny to delete content and post wrong (and I mean really wrong) content instead - short: those who do big damage. And I think it should stay that way, for now.

  • TRG - I totally support your decision to ban people who post long irrelevant WikiRaider entries in japanese with links to World of Warcraft embedded in them :D
    That really is spam and deserves to be stamped out. :lol:

  • Another thought about WikiRaider;


    Let's take the hypothetical situation where a fan of TR Site A comes over to the Wiki and posts a long entry about how great TR Site A is and how wonderful the owner of TR Site A is, and at the same time posts an entry saying "TR Site B, however, is rubbish and the owner of TR Site B is in league with Satan and is probably a child molester." That sort of dispute would probably need an "editorial" meeting by TR Wiki staff to decide what to include and what to change, and to negotiate with TR Sites A and B. However I think that sort of difficult situation will rarely arise, and once it had happened once or twice and people realised that Wiki Raider was unbiased and based on verifiable facts (and not affliated with TR Site A, TR Site B, Eidos, Core, Crystal Dynamics or anyone else), then there will be less trouble in the future and people will turn to Wiki Raider as the "site of record" in the TR world. Of course, it may be that there are some unsavoury people in the TR fanship but provided that any facts posted about them are verifiable, then they will have to live with their unfavourable Wiki Raider entry :) The same is true of any TR "scandals" than may get an entry - if the facts are true and provable, Wiki Raider should bravely and unbiasedly report them. :lara: Wiki Raider should never be "silenced' by bullying or bogus threats of legal action. :island (Again - in my opinion.)

  • Regarding your latest post above mine, I honestly don't see how that relates to the issue of inaccurate contributions...unless such a thing happened before I became a member here or started contributing to WikiRaider? I'm not entirely sure, perhaps you could fill me in via Private Message?


    However, I do agree with your other opinion regarding the WikiRaider membership status, but I think my idea of requiring a forum membership first is better - it would allow us to get in touch with the new members before they start contributing to WikiRaider - we could easily give them the low down on the site, the do's and don'ts if you will, and make sure they adhere to the rules, and acknowledge the consequences for not following the regulations.


    I mean, I think that'd be the easiest thing to do, but I'm not entirely sure how the administration of WikiRaider works, so I don't think a system of confirmation that a membership on our forum is intact before registering on WikiRaider can be created. Perhaps (if this is possible), newbies who wish to contribute to WikiRaider must create a membership on the forum first. Then, once they get their username and password set, they must use the same for WikiRaider, and if they do not match, they cannot edit WikiRaider - it ensures a forum membership exists under their account. Does that make sense, :oops: ?


    And restating the main idea, if they have a membership on the forum, we can easily contact them with anything we need to inform them of. But then again, WikiRaider does require an email address for registration, but who's to say the member didn't create a bogus email that they'll never check just to damage WikiRaider, or just contribute to something they believe is correct?

  • I'm not convinced that giving people instructions how to post before they can post (if that's what you are suggesting) is a good idea. It would strike me as a bit patronising and a bit like micromanagement, which I disapprove of personally. :rulez


    With respect to your PM suggestion that we have an editorial meeting in the absence of a problem - I'm not sure that is necessary. I was only thinking that editors could meet in the event of an unusual problem and I don't see that happening any time soon. As for the type of problem I mean check out the history of the page on Kurtis Trent at Tomb Raider Wiki. :axe


    As for emails, people can post with a "fake" email (whatever that means) both here on the forum and at the Wiki. Personally I don't really care who people say they are (I wasn't christened Ostercy, for example) but rather what they write. A list of "approved" writers for the Wiki is far too restrictive in my opinion. Also the idea of some sort of inner group deciding things in secret for everybody else's benefit would seem too elitist to me. Like a true Wiki, I feel that Wiki Raider should be open to all. With good editors I don't forsee a problem with everybody being allowed to try writing entries. :morning

  • A list of "approved" writers for the Wiki is far too restrictive in my opinion.


    Agreed, the German Wikipedia is moving in that direction in my opinion and I have lost my interest in contributing there at all, and I'd imagine that WikiRaider too would loose valuable members, who may be a bit shy but have the knowledge to work a wiki without guidance. I personally would not contribute if I had to do this and that first. (I am member on a website about geocaching where they need to approve this and that before you can really do anything, and I don't go there very often and rather visit other sites.)



    As for the war between websites. I'd rather stay away from too much gossip and not go there when it comes to writing articles about websites.

  • I agree about avoiding gossip. If something is factual and someone writes it, fair enough. I guess the best thing to do is review new articles as they come along. :thumbs:

  • Like a true Wiki, I feel that Wiki Raider should be open to all. With good editors I don't forsee a problem with everybody being allowed to try writing entries. :morning

    Perhaps, but it becomes a problem when someone edits an article, adding information that seems to be inaccurate or straight wrong, and when you edit it in correction, the person changes it back, :ouch: . I feel like leaving a note, "[enter editor's name here], your information is incorrect. Please do not edit or change this until you know what's factorial".


    I would have suggested this, but it may be too much work for an administrator, unless we get more than one: All edits should be subject to approval.

  • Darth Max seems to be the only person who behaves in this way. I wonder from the style of their English if maybe they are very young, and letting their enthusiasm to post new information first overcome their good sense? I think the one day bans are a good tactic. DM will come around eventually. Maybe with persistance, DM will one day become a good Wiki contributer, as whatever their faults they do seem to be a real TR fan. It's a shame that at the moment DM seems to be spoiling entries (like Thor's Hammer), but I guess it's easy enough to press the "undo" button :sun:

  • Hello there! :wave2
    Here's a quote from the Talk page of Voices article that sums up my question:

    So, all in all I mean the voices from the classics.


    Any ideas? :think:

  • Alas imdb doesn't have anything on it either. I think that for the early games it will be almost impossible to figure out, unless there is someone out there who knows. I'll have a look around.

  • I hope that there'd be some info on them, it'd be great to know the voices behind the characters! :-)


    Oh, and I created a category for voice actors, and thought about moving the Voices article to under the name Voice Actors. Does it sound good? I'm trying to clean up the Actors page, since I think it should only have the actors who appear in the movies... :chin