I think we should have a way of letting people who don't use the forums know when something important is going on. Newsletter style updates on coming changes and stuff would be good, and we could have avoided all the Recent Unpleasantness. I didn't know what was going on or where to find out.
More pluck than an Alabama banjo festivalIt is absolutly vital that tropers know what the policies of this website are and when the policies change. You should not have to read every page of every thread in TRS and Wiki Talk and moniter every adminsitrative page just to know to stop using certain trope names, or stop creating pages with certain types of content in it.
The first step to fixing a problem is letting people know that is considered a problem to begin with.
There's gotta be a way to let people know when something big is going down. Finding out by accident, having no information readily available, caused panic and spread rumors.
More pluck than an Alabama banjo festivalJust a few months ago we had to ask for the newsbox to be used more. Then last week we only heard about the Adsense shenanigans through the rumor mill.
Who has access to the newsbox? It gets stuffed full of Echo Chamber and other social stuff, so I assume the Intern Desk has the keys, but then policy and other major things slip by without any warning, which suggests only one forgetful person has access. This should be a thing that all the moderators can post to under consensus.
Fresh-eyed movie blogThe moderators have come to the consensus that using the announcement box to announce wiki back end stuff doesn't work. It just results in confused people asking the same questions in circles, trolls shit posting, personal attacks, and nothing getting done.
Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. DickIf you don't want the people to be misinformed, then why don't you give them the information?
More pluck than an Alabama banjo festivalTo expand on ^, everything in ^^ has been happening anyways. It's been a delayed reaction, but it's been even more confused due to the lack of proper explanation, and it's only going to get worse.
That's Feo . . . He's a disgusting, mysoginistic, paedophilic asshat who moonlights as a shitty writer—Something AwfulI think a good place to start is adjusting the blocked banner image and replacing the text with an explanation. It could be as short as you want, but at least it wouldn't be insulting.
More pluck than an Alabama banjo festivalSome sort of bulletin would be nice. I didn't even know that there was a big clean-up happening until weeks later, and being someone who felt very strongly about the subject—even if I weren't so vocal about it—I felt a bit shocked that I didn't hear about it when it happened.
I'll hide your name inside a word and paint your eyes with false perception.There would only need to be a notice that everybody can stop panicing and focus, or else they will keep panicing until everything's already figured out, and then they'll complain.
More pluck than an Alabama banjo festivalI wish I could change the name of the discussion to something more general and/or catchy. Maybe 'Getting informed about Wiki events needs to be easier'. Oh well (though if a mod could change it, that would be great). I'm editing my first comment to be less dry and more readable- I blame typing quickly and tiredness.
'News box' was a bad term to use. It's already loaded with preconceptions and doesn't really describe what I was thinking, and people are associating it with the box that used to be in the left side row of links. But that's not what I'm thinking of, not least because it never communicated anything but advertisements for stuff related to the wiki, like the video series.
Other than that, nothing to add at the moment, carry on.
edited 18th Apr '12 9:13:40 AM by Westrim
I rarely visit the forums to avoid the cynicism ooze.I agree with this thread and Feo in general.
Shima, while I appreciate your median stance on most things, I've noticed a disturbing lack of faith in the wiki populace while at the same time demanding that everyone have complete faith in the inverse. Even if being more informed won't "stop" the rumors, speculation, and panic, it's a Perfect Solution Fallacy not to do anything at all. Even people who have normally backed up the policy changes by the administration are taking exception to the way recent events have gone down.
There's a GENERAL ANNOUNCEMENTS
thread, but it hasn't been touched in over a year. If reviving that to announce huge changes like the split of Web Original or the porn policy snafu we're currently experiencing would just catalyze the same problems as the news box, then maybe it wouldn't be such a great idea. I'd definitely watchlist it if it is, but of course not everyone would read the thread.
EDIT: That Human ninja'd me with the mentioning.
edited 18th Apr '12 9:52:01 AM by FinalStarman
I'm not crazy, I just don't give a darn!The other problem with the announcements thread is not everybody knows about it. If something big is going to happen that will effect everyone, then everyone should know, not just the people who read the fora.
More pluck than an Alabama banjo festivalI think one useful thing for individual threads, specifically fast-moving and long ones, would be for the mods to have the ability to "pin" a post at the top. This post would contain a brief summary of changes and topics discussed thus far, as well as answering recurring questions and maybe providing relevant links. It would be visible at the top of every page in the thread, and hopefully stop people A) making the same points a thousand times, and B) being put off a thread by length and speed. Naturally, there would be people who might ignore it, but that will happen no matter what is done. It could help someone see what may happen and if they want to participate in that thread.
This wouldn't help in getting people to find the actual thread, of course.
That was the amazing part. Things just keep going.
More people would be able to access it that way.
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I think that's a great idea. A lot of people come into a long thread and have to ask other people to catch up on what's been happening, and that only wastes time.
edited 18th Apr '12 2:33:38 PM by condottiera
More pluck than an Alabama banjo festival

At this time, the only ways I know of to learn that something has changed in wiki policy are to:
1. Check the forum and find the thread,
2. See the results on your watchlist as a page you watch is affected,
3. Linking to the page and seeing that it is changed or blank.
There needs to be a place where moderators can note changes to policy. The changes should be listed by date, say what pages or indexes are affected, and provide a link to an appropriate thread to respond. I can think of several ways it could be presented; as a page added to the site that can be linked to or add watchlists, an applet only visible on watchlists and other user pages, maintenance pages, or maybe something else. I don't think being sitewide would be useful, as it would distract more casual users.
There are several ways that this would be beneficial:
I don't think whatever announcement system is created should be used for things under debate, only notification of what is already decided. However the notice should happen before the change is put into effect, perhaps by a couple days or a week, so that flaws can be found beforehand (the shift a few months back in how subpages were presented comes to mind) and so that people have time to learn of the coming change and unruffle their feathers before actually dealing with it.
edited 18th Apr '12 9:11:19 AM by Westrim
I rarely visit the forums to avoid the cynicism ooze.