The Sims Wiki talk:Community Portal

Eliminate Player Stories
I'd like to propose that we eliminate Player Stories from Sim and character pages on the wiki. My reasons are as follows:
 * 1) The content added to these pages is more often than not of poor or very poor quality, is sometimes profane and unacceptable, and is nearly impossible to moderate in its current size.
 * 2) The Fanon Namespace has been created, which allows for users who wish to write about the goings-on of their Sims to do so without using an article sub-page.
 * 3) Contributions to Player Stories pages are very very often not signed and quickly forgotten by the author and by everyone else.
 * 4) The number of player stories contributors is very low - most users do not contribute to these pages.

Thoughts? --  LostInRiverview talk · blog 01:05, June 4, 2011 (UTC)
 * I agree. For the record, they are subpages, and don't go towards our article count, so I see no problem there. --W H  (Talk) 01:06, June 4, 2011 (UTC)
 * I also agree. Player Stories pages are usually overlooked, and because of that, they are often of horrible quality. Users abandoned their stories, and many are very short, inappropriate, and just... bad. Now that we have the Fanon Namespace, I believe that the Player Stories pages are unneeded. —Random Ranaun (Talk to me! ) 01:15, June 4, 2011 (UTC)
 * I disagree, even though player stories are not that controllable we should remember that no all people are allowed to write their own stories, for these people player stories is still a good way to share their gameplay, but a new policy could be applied regarding this matter. --Guilherme Guerreiro (talk here) 07:30, June 4, 2011 (UTC)
 * I agree, though fanon Sims work a bit different than player stories, as player stories actually uses premade Sims or townies. But it's true, the content are poor and badly organized. Every story is random and made-up by users. I mean, who wants to read Mortimer Goth's player stories all the way down? We should only keep theories for certain Sims, like Bella's disappearance or Olive Specter as murderer. Nikel23 07:50, June 4, 2011 (UTC)
 * Guilherme, what did you mean by "Not everyone is allowed to make fanon"? If you are referring to anons not being able to, I think they should just make an account. --W H  (Talk) 07:54, June 4, 2011 (UTC)
 * I suppose that's why authors never sign their stories. They could be anonymous, not regular users. Oh yeah, having player stories page means number of Sims times two, because nearly every Sim has this. I dislike wasted pages. Nikel23 07:58, June 4, 2011 (UTC)
 * For the record, the Player Sstories pages are subpages, and don't go towards the article count. (You know, the one that says x pages on this wiki, above the activity feed.) --W H  (Talk) 08:01, June 4, 2011 (UTC)


 * Mmm. I don't know...what about the occasional good quality story? Some users worked hard on making them, and I don't see how we're going to be able to notify every single one of them to tell them to make a page or lose their work. Aren't some people going to be negative upon finding out their stories are gone? Zombie talk •  blog 09:29, June 4, 2011 (UTC)
 * Most users forget about their player stories, so I don't see an issue there. As for telling them the stories have gone, we'll just have to accept that it would take far too long to do so. --W H  (Talk) 09:37, June 4, 2011 (UTC)
 * I totally agree with Bob, and I think this is a very harsh suggestion, yes I meant anons in the previous comment Wogan. I disagree that users forget about their player stories, I have actually seen many completing it and ending it, I do not think people forget that easily, if this is approved, I think there will be a significant number of users with a "broken heart". --Guilherme Guerreiro (talk here) 10:44, June 4, 2011 (UTC)
 * Us eliminating the pages wouldn't be done in secret. If we end up eliminating the pages, such action will be announced long before any deletion actually occurs, to allow people who have stories they'd like to save the opportunity to do so. Any person who visits the wiki even semi-frequently (and therefore, a user that is more likely to care about the story they wrote) will have the chance to move it to the Fanon namespace or save it onto their computer before we ever delete it. And while I admit that every once in a while there is a good story there, these are very few and far between and, in my opinion, don't justify us having the pages and in having to manage such a vast amount of content. --  LostInRiverview talk · blog 11:25, June 4, 2011 (UTC)


 * If we can give people a while (and by a while, I mean half a year) to 'save' their stories, I'll support this. And Wogan, some people still come on, and leave with the thought 'hey. I wrote a story! Now it'll stay and people can read it forever!'. They might forget it, but when they added it, they didn't know that it wont stay forever. -- Zombie talk • blog 11:59, June 4, 2011 (UTC)
 * I don't suppose users esp. anons would remember they've made a player story if they don't even sign their names. I believe they won't even visit the same Sims' player stories. It just doesn't make sense if they play the same Sims but make different scenarios, I mean, who wants to play Goth family over and over from beginning? Whenever they made a player story, they shared it there, didn't sign the story, and it will remain there not updated and forgotten. Nikel23 16:01, June 4, 2011 (UTC)


 * Nikel, I have some things I disagree with. Like I said: they might not have bothered remembering because they thought that it would be there forever and that they've did their part. And almost every new Wikia user I know doesn't remember to sign, or is just oblivious to the fact. Just because they don't/don't know how to sign doesn't mean they don't care about their stories. I play the Goth family and the Wolff family almost every start of a game if I don't make my own Sims because it's a preference. Plus, I have another problem with the play stories being deleted: even if they did come to retrieve it, and still want it on the wiki, what if it just isn't enough to make a Fan fiction page with? A few paragraphs is a lot on Player Story pages, but is normally a low-quality fanon page which will be deleted soon. So, users might get upset that their stories, which used to be fine, is now 'low-quality fan fiction'. Even if they care about the stories, what if they don't have the time to make a quality fanon page, yet still want the story to be available for people to read? Zombie talk •  blog 18:35, June 4, 2011 (UTC)
 * I agree that we should abolish the Player Stories pages as their only contributors are anons and they can easily create an account to create fanon. I've even seen one fanon article based on a canon Sim in an imaginative way and is a more detailed article. 19:35, June 4, 2011 (UTC)
 * I agree with Bob, player stories shouldn't be deleted due to the reasons he mentioned. --Guilherme Guerreiro (talk here) 19:47, June 4, 2011 (UTC)
 * I disagree with Bob. So many of these people aren't even registered users in the first place. Although there are some exceptions, most often anonymous users don't stick around unless they actually register an account. If these people didn't do that, then the odds of them even coming back to their player stories is pretty low. Also, half a year? That is an astronomically long time... I would say 1 1/2 to 2 months at the very most. If a user doesn't visit here at least once every two months, then they probably don't care much about their story. --  LostInRiverview talk · blog 19:50, June 4, 2011 (UTC)
 * (added more). Another point brought up that I'd like to address. Guilherme pointed out that anonymous users can't create fanon articles - that's true. However, one added 'benefit' of this is that users who wish to make those sorts of stories then register an account. Once they do that, they're much more likely to 1) become active members of the wiki and 2) improve their story and keep it up to date, both of which are very good outcomes. --  LostInRiverview talk · blog 19:52, June 4, 2011 (UTC)


 * Still, every being has a right to remain anonymous. It's like we're telling them "create an account, or your story isn't allowed here". Get what I'm saying? -- Zombie talk • blog 19:54, June 4, 2011 (UTC)
 * But LiR remember that people do not add their player stories to always improve them, as many of them end the stories they write, they won't check them to improve it as it's ended, I think that's understandable, so deleting those stories is for me a bad option. --Guilherme Guerreiro (talk here) 19:56, June 4, 2011 (UTC)


 * Idea: We could archive them all, possibly? Zombie talk •  blog 20:00, June 4, 2011 (UTC)
 * What's the point in short stories? The whole point of a story is something that's interesting to read - if all we have are thousands of "This Sim got married, had some kids, and died," stories, then quickly player stories become very boring to read (which they currently are). Just like fanon stories have a minimum length requirement, I think all stories should, simply for the sake of the story itself. Since so few player stories existing now ever hit that threshold, I think they should as a whole be ditched.
 * (added) I don't think we should archive, because most of them honestly aren't good enough to save. --  LostInRiverview talk · blog 20:03, June 4, 2011 (UTC)
 * But LiR, boring is your opinion many people may not see them as boring (excluding the ones like "Hannah got married and then had a kid"). Thank you. --Guilherme Guerreiro (talk here) 21:34, June 4, 2011 (UTC)
 * At first, I felt strongly towards this, but now I'm not so sure. I think, while this idea is good in theory, it would be really hard to implement. I'd say that we should look through and get rid of a lot of them, i.e. the bad ones, but that would be incredibly tedious and time consuming. I'm starting to think, "If it's not broken, don't fix it." I think we should just leave the system as-is. --W H  (Talk) 09:23, June 5, 2011 (UTC)
 * Still, we can't compare which is good and which is bad if we want to get rid of bad ones. Since no issue was made... what's actually the real problem happening? The reasons LiR stated are not real problems, right? Nikel23 11:01, June 5, 2011 (UTC)
 * They are problems, because we have a large volume of very poor material sitting on our wiki. Is that something we should just continue to ignore because it would be difficult to fix? I say no. If we can't get the authors to improve the quality (which would be impossible considering how many authors there are, and over the period of time they were written) and we can't spend the time picking out good stories from bad, then the last logical option is to delete the pages.
 * Here's my honest thought on the matter. I don't think anyone is going to care. I think that certain people are really concerned that all these users are going to cry and be very upset if they player stories go away, but I am willing to bet that few, if any, of these users will even give it a second thought, especially if we have a period prior to deletion to allow story recovery. The bottom line is that the player stories pages are shamefully bad, so bad that there is no hope for improvement, leaving us with only one justified solution - delete. --  LostInRiverview talk · blog 13:23, June 5, 2011 (UTC)
 * I do not think so. My final position on this is weak oppose. --Guilherme Guerreiro (talk here) 13:53, June 5, 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm going to say Neutral. --W H  (Talk) 07:14, June 6, 2011 (UTC)

For me, Player Stories should definately be deleted. They were useful once upon a time, but now with the Fanon Namespace, it is unlikely they will ever be needed again. And, as it was pointed above, nobody even actually reads these stories, so, how can anyone care?. So, I'm saying Strong Support. \_Andronikos Leventis Talk 13:00, June 6, 2011 (UTC)
 * I couldn't say it any better than Andronikos just did. Strong support. --  LostInRiverview talk · blog 13:08, June 6, 2011 (UTC)
 * Somehow, Fanon has its own weakness. The main difference I could seek is the simplicity. Making a fanon page is complicated and not simple, and it will be hard especially for beginner users who are not really good at editing pages yet. On the other hand, player stories can be used as simple means to share the stories, and it could be a good editing beginning for all beginner users. Some new users who prefer sharing their stories will be more likely to make player stories than articles, so player story is a basic and simple way for them to start their editing experience. I'm sure it will be recklessly written, but that's better than they edit an article, right? Nikel23 15:49, June 6, 2011 (UTC)
 * Due to Nikel's reasons I am going to change my position to oppose. --Guilherme Guerreiro (talk here) 18:25, June 6, 2011 (UTC)
 * I do want to keep the player stories, but, I do want to eliminate all player stories that are left unsigned. Ѧüя◎ґ 18:48, June 6, 2011 (UTC)
 * Or maybe we should make an eye-catching noticeboard or template so that writers actually read the template to sign? The current template is boring and contains too long words. Nikel23 02:18, June 7, 2011 (UTC)
 * I have read through the comments again, and have changed my opinion to Weak Support. --W H  (Talk) 07:40, June 9, 2011 (UTC)
 * My position is Strong Support. Let's face it, according to Wikia, stubs should only make 1/5 out of all pages on a Wiki. This includes other namespace pages and sub-pages. Since many player story pages are unedited and empty (mainly for townies, NPCs, and deceased Sims), our stub count goes way over the limit. And what's worse? The player story pages that are longer than stub-length are of horrible quality, with bad language, spelling, grammar, and punctuation. They are also near-impossible to maintain, due to their length. Users do not sign their stories, and, come on, who really cares to read them? Player stories make our wiki look bad, and therefore, should be removed. —Random Ranaun (Talk to me! ) 02:34, June 10, 2011 (UTC)


 * Weak support. -- Bleeh (talk) (blog) 02:39, June 10, 2011 (UTC)

What I have determined so far: three users (Andronikos, Random Ranaun, and I) are in strong support, two users (Woganhemlock and Bleeh) are in weak support, Guilhermen Guerreiro is in opposition, and Auror has opposition to deleting all player stories (which for the purposes of determining consensus would count as an 'oppose'). I wish to wrap this up before too long, so I'd encourage everyone to give their final thoughts, and would encourage users who have not spoken up yet to speak up within the next five days or so. --  LostInRiverview talk · blog 06:23, June 14, 2011 (UTC)
 * I change to full support in eliminating player stories. Ѧüя◎ґ 06:33, June 14, 2011 (UTC)
 * Even though, many of you are right about player stories quality, I think we should respect the users who have made the stories who thought they would be there forever, also we are also guilty about player stories quality since we didn't control them from the beginning, nor we did make a policy very strict to these player stories, so I suggest instead a new policy, eliminating all player stories seems to me unfair for me and for users who didn't make stories with profanity or bad language, and even if we have time to save the stories in our computer before they get deleted, many will not remember all the stories. It's unfair. --Guilherme Guerreiro (talk here) 11:48, June 14, 2011 (UTC)
 * What would be the new policy that you're suggesting? And as well, how would you enforce it on the hundreds of stories that have been completely abandoned by their authors? --  LostInRiverview talk · blog 15:05, June 14, 2011 (UTC)
 * Of course many of them have been abandonned because many users have already ended their storires, I just think it's unfair to delete them altogether, a new policy being more strict with the player stories could help. --Guilherme Guerreiro (talk here) 15:14, June 14, 2011 (UTC)
 * You're saying... you're remaking the player stories instead of deleting it? Sorry if I don't get the point. I'm clueless over time. Nikel23 16:03, June 14, 2011 (UTC)
 * Nit exactly remaking them, but kind of, I know it would be hard, and I do not know how to do it, though I' think on it. --Guilherme Guerreiro (talk here) 16:07, June 14, 2011 (UTC)


 * I am in full oppose of deleting player stories. I just feel it's wrong to delete them, as nobody ever gave any guidelines except for the user to sign them. Even if they didn't sign them, nobody ever did anything about it, when we actually should have. I would feel, like Guilherme said, guilty that they were removed when people thought, no matter what the quality is, that they could entrust us and leave them here. And for a whole bunch of other reasons states above. BobNewbie   ∞(Talk)∞  16:58, June 14, 2011 (UTC)
 * I was missing the word, what I meant was guideline not a policy, we should have given guidelines from the beginning, and the player stories not having good quality is partly our fault, because we did not care about them. For users who are in the beginning it's so much easier to write a player story rather than making fanon, and also player stories are for users who want to tell their pre-made Sims stories, though they can create a fanon about a pre-made Sim, I don't think they understand that message, as there are very few fanon pages about pre-made Sims or so. --Guilherme Guerreiro (talk here) 17:20, June 14, 2011 (UTC)
 * I support per all of the support votes above. 17:36, June 14, 2011 (UTC)
 * Alright... I've noticed player stories only seem to be posted every few hours, they aren't that popular. So why don't we maybe delete all the current stories, and simply moderate all future story submissions? We could add it to tasks for administrators with the Fanon admin project. Other than this, I don't see a way around this. --W H  (Talk) 05:40, June 15, 2011 (UTC)

Out of curiosity, will the Theories pages still remain if the player stories are deleted? BobNewbie  ∞(Talk)∞  10:22, June 22, 2011 (UTC)
 * I don't think so, they're pretty much player stories too, and have the same isses as well. --<font face="Trebuchet MS" color="black">W H  (talk) 05:26, June 23, 2011 (UTC)
 * It shouldn't, because player stories and theories are different! Theories are only in certain Sims. If player stories are deleted, we won't have as many issues in theories, right? At least so. Nikel23 06:23, June 23, 2011 (UTC)

Moving forward
This issue seems to have stopped being discussed, so I've done my best to figure out what's going on. Although strictly by the numbers, it appears that only two users who voiced up are vocally against these deletions, I think even some supporters may be somewhat hesitant to go along with this, even with votes of support. Therefore, what I'd like to do is shift away from the idea of deleting all player stories, at least for now, and instead focus on a different issue.

It is a fact that we have over 1000 player stories pages that have no stories on them. A lot of these pages are for NPC Sims or very obscure Sims that don't get a lot of playtime. What I would like to propose, in lieu of deleting all articles, is for us to delete all empty Player Stories pages. We can adjust the Sim template so that the link that appears is no longer red (but still says 'create player stories page') but the Player Stories pages won't exist until someone wants to use them.

Deleting the empty pages means that no stories get deleted and we massively decrease the number of pages that sit empty and unused. Thoughts? (I want discussion, I do not want votes right away). --  LostInRiverview talk · blog 06:13, July 3, 2011 (UTC)
 * Hmm, good idea. Maybe change the text to "player stories" instead of "create player stories", as sometimes new users are hesitant to create pages. But, other than this, I see no issues with what you are proposing. --<font face="Trebuchet MS" color="black">W H  (Talk) 07:46, July 3, 2011 (UTC)
 * Subpages don't count in number of pages in wiki, right? And if one of the issue is to remind people to sign their stories, maybe the Player Stories template should be redesigned to be more attractive. If their stories aren't signed, then it will be likely to be deleted... or so. Nikel23 09:04, July 3, 2011 (UTC)
 * The issue isn't so much player stories being signed, but more what to do with the empty page. But, yes, we need to try to get them signed somehow... --<font face="Trebuchet MS" color="black">W H  (Talk) 00:09, July 4, 2011 (UTC)
 * Alright, this discussion has stopped for a while, but we should come to a conclusion. I say delete. --  LostInRiverview talk · blog 15:29, July 19, 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm slightly hesitant, but I'm going to say delete as well. ~> ฬ ђ  (tคlк ★  ς๏ภtгเ๒ร) 10:15, July 21, 2011 (UTC)
 * I'd say delete. 10:41, July 21, 2011 (UTC)
 * If we delete all empty player stories, even if we do change the color of the link, wouldn't they still count towards our list of Wanted pages? —<font color="#008000">Random Ranaun (<font color="#00FF00">Talk to me! ) 14:23, July 21, 2011 (UTC)
 * While I am also hesitant, especially when it comes to player stories quality, I would say not to delete. -- Guilherme Guerreiro [[File:Thanks rose.png]]( talk here ) 14:27, July 21, 2011 (UTC)
 * I say Not to Delete. The Wiki is an informational, helpful place, for players of The Sims Series. I personally read a lot of the player stories, and I also frequently add my own. I am newer to this than most of you on here so I honestly didn't know there were general expectations for Player Stories. I admit that I have submitted a few short, sloppy stories that mainly focus on the names of the kids I made the Sims have (that's what everyone seemed to be doing, ;) ), but after reading this discussion, I understand what is expected of these stories. Player Stories, in my opinion, are nice to read once in a while and have actually inspired me to get more creative with my game. I agree with Guilherme Guerrerio's earlier posts saying there should be a policy, though.
 * P.S. What is the Fanon Namespace? It sounds interesting. Simrose101 20:37, July 23, 2011 (UTC)
 * The fanon namespace is a part of the wiki where a user can write about their own Sims, lots, neighborhoods and even their own fan fiction articles. It provides a lot more freeedom than the player stories feature and some have even written in-depth stories about pre-created Sims there. 20:41, July 23, 2011 (UTC)
 * I'd like to remind everyone that when we talk about deleting or not deleting, we're not actually deleting content at all. The only thing on these pages is a template - that's it. Not a single user would lose a single contribution, not one letter of player stories would be deleted. The only thing this proposal would do is delete the empty and unused player stories pages. -  LostInRiverview talk · blog 23:26, July 29, 2011 (UTC)


 * I say delete the empty pages. I think that articles about sims are more important than empty unused player stories. Though, I'm not saying that we should delete Theories pages. <font face="Vladimir Script" size="3"> El cobaya talk here  13:45, August 7, 2011 (UTC)

I think we dont need to delete it, player stories can prevent people to do insert a nonsense/vandal into the main page because we have a place to write their own stories. but i do agree that unsigned stories must be deleted.--Wir.wiryawan 14:38, August 7, 2011 (UTC)
 * I disagree with you, Wiryawan. Player stories only help beginner editing, but don't prevent vandalism. And any stories will not be deleted as LiR said. I say Delete. Nikel   (Talk to  me!)  11:22, August 11, 2011 (UTC)
 * Gosh, LiR has left but this issue hasn't been resolved yet. Will it remain abandoned?  Nikel  Talk  08:55, September 11, 2011 (UTC)
 * I know, discussion has been dried up. I'm hoping something will happen soon or it will become archived next time the page is cleared out.

Community input on rollback requests
I know there's probably been a discussion about this already, but since it seems that nothing has taken effect I'm going to start a new one.

I do not believe that we need as much community input on rollback requests. I think input from bureaucrats and possibly admins should be enough. What do you think? -- Bleeh <font color="#489094">(talk) <font color="#489094">(blog) 17:15, August 31, 2011 (UTC)
 * I agree. If a bureaucrat doesn't feel that someone would be capable of using the rollback rights correctly then I strongly doubt that a bureaucrat would give them to the user in the first place. Plus, having rollback isn't as much of a leap forward from being a user as much as becoming an admin is; rollback only requires someone to show that they do want to improve the wiki and fight vandalism and I don't think a community vote is required to judge that, whereas it's a different story when it comes to admins and bureaucrats. 17:25, August 31, 2011 (UTC)
 * I agree as well. DanPin  ( Talk ) 17:43, August 31, 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes, consensus for admins and bureaucrats could be enough. -- RoseGui [[File:Thanks rose.png]] ( talk here ) 19:03, August 31, 2011 (UTC)
 * As it stands, only Bureaucrat applications receive a community "vote" of consensus. Administrator requests technically can be processed by a bureaucrat the moment they're posted, but usually as a courtesy and to allow for community discussion, the requests are left open for an acceptable length of time. Honestly, the only time it's ever necessary to give feedback on a rollback nomination/application is if there's some compelling reason why the person shouldn't be in that position. For what very little a rollbacker can do above a regular user, we put a lot of weight in that position as being sort of a stepping stone to administratorship, but it doesn't necessarily have to be that way.


 * As it is, I think we put way too much scrutiny into rollbacker candidates; not every user gets much of an opportunity to do anti-vandalism work, since most of the time the admins are the ones that undo vandals and issue blocks (obviously, in that case). I think as long as a user shows they've been around for a bit of time (like, a month or more) and shows that they're at least moderately comfortable with wiki controls, then they should be free to receive rollback status. I wouldn't go so far as to say that user feedback on rollback applications should be prohibited, but I would say that it really is unnecessary - if a user thinks a candidate for rollback shouldn't get it, they should take it up with a bureaucrat, or even address the candidate to try and work out why. --  LostInRiverview talk · blog 01:22, September 1, 2011 (UTC)
 * I will say I agree with the scrutiny part. I remember some time ago before the requests for administratorship page was opened, the candidates for deletion page was pretty active and I remember myself leaving messages for administrators when we had mass vandals. Now that we have more administrators, unnecessary pages and vandals are usually caught on the spot and dealt with in a relatively short amount of time, meaning that someone who is willing to help revert vandalism and nominate pages for deletion may not get much of a chance to do so. Like LiR said, if someone wishes to request for rollback rights who has been about for a reasonable amount of time, worked to improve the wiki and has not caused/participated in disruptive behavior then I don't see a problem with giving them the rollback flags. Again, another good point is that if a user has doubts about another with the rollback tool then they are free to voice their opinion as long as it's used to try and guide the user in the "right direction" (and if it's of a sensitive nature then they can email a bureaucrat of PM one via IRC).


 * To sum things up, I agree that rollback requests shouldn't rely as much on a community discussion unless there is a reason why someone shouldn't be given the rights and that we could loosen the requirements for the rights as rollback isn't as much of a big deal as administrator/bureaucrat rights and they can easily be removed if a bureaucrat sees fit. 14:48, September 1, 2011 (UTC)


 * That sounds fair to me. If a bureaucrat approves it, chances are it's a good decision, and if need be users can contact the crat who made the decision.
 * We may as well try and wrap this up. I think the best way to go about this is to put less emphasis on anti-vandalism work when it comes to approving rollback requests and when a user requests, I think that the community should be allowed to ask questions to the nominee, which is an optional process as some users may not find the need to ask the nominee any questions, and if someone is aware of a recent issue regarding that user, they should be able to ask about that in a question to the nominee about it. A user may also mention why the user shouldn't receive rollback rights on the nominations page (with a compelling argument) and in a more severe case, they can contact a bureaucrat via email or IRC. Feel free to suggest something different if you think it would be for the better but I'm just offering this so that there would be less scrutiny and community input on rollback requests. 16:40, September 9, 2011 (UTC)

Voting for admins/bureaucrats
Hey guys! This thread kind of branches off of the above thread and the points made on that thread that are related to whether there should be community input on rollback requests or not.

Firstly, I personally think that we should shorten the voting period on Requests for bureaucratship from the current two week period to one week as I (and possibly others) have noticed that most of the voting seems to take place within the first week, with very little happening in the second week and given a community of our size, I think one week would be enough to generate an overall consensus.

Secondly, I think we could adopt a similar system when it comes to promoting new administrators via the Requests for administratorship page. While I have no major gripes with requests being left open for a few days so that the community can voice their opinions, I think that there are a few flaws with this system as before, I have seen one request that was accepted within a few days while another was left sitting there for approximately 2 weeks. While it is based of off the proposed changes for voting for bureaucrats, I still think we can have more than one vote going for administrators at a time (like we currently have) for the same reasons that we use that method now. I think if we brought in a one week system, it would make administrator requests more organised, overall consensus would be clearer and it would be more fair overall for every candidate.

Those are the two things I am proposing. What do you think? Also. feel free to suggest a potential change to the proposal if you think it would be better. 13:04, September 2, 2011 (UTC)
 * This seems fair to me. If we could add the countdown template to admin requests like the ones for bureaucratship, and have a crat review them when the timer runs out, that would be great. I remember my admin request lasted for two weeks before it was reviewed. I'm thinking one week fr crat requests and 4-5 days for admin requests seems fair, and if need be it can be extended if it is felt there isn't enough consensus. Thoughts?
 * I agree we need a more fair system for adminship requests, and I agree with both points. The 4-5 days option for adminship requests is the one I like the most. -- RoseGui [[File:Thanks rose.png]] ( talk here ) 13:37, September 3, 2011 (UTC)
 * I don't see an issue with what WH said. 17:15, September 3, 2011 (UTC)
 * Generally speaking, bureaucrats are the same as administrators, with one obvious difference. Additionally, this wiki tends to place its Bureaucrats with some sort of mostly unwritten authority. The point I'm making is that administrators are selected because of their ability to administrate, not simply because they are popular users (although that is obviously an advantage). Not all people who are friends with everyone can be productive administrators, so it seems to me the system we have had up to now - where administrator requests are handled by bureaucrats only - is acceptable.


 * Allowing user comment on administrator selection is a relatively recent occurrence; for example, when I applied for administratorship, there was no user comment of any kind. In fact, the first time I can see any users giving any feedback of any kind on administrator selection was on GG's selection back in March. If the purpose of selecting administrators is to pick users who are experienced and capable editors, then in reality having user feedback and voting is completely irrelevant. As it is, I support the idea of allowing user feedback, but I am opposed to forcing formal votes for consensus for administrators.


 * The decision to promote a user should reside with the Bureaucrats, since it is the bureaucrat's job to determine whether an administrator candidate is capable of doing the job, not whether the user is popular. --  LostInRiverview talk · blog 18:08, September 3, 2011 (UTC)
 * Are we going to change the policies? -- RoseGui [[File:Thanks rose.png]] ( talk here ) 15:13, September 9, 2011 (UTC)
 * There's a discussion about it going on - underneath this one, funnily enough. But I'm presuming that some change will happen.

Let's start with the first proposal...
I think the best way to deal with this is to have a discussion regarding just the first proposal only, which proposes shortening the voting period for bureaucrats to one week. Personally, I think that Bleeh's RfB should have gone with this one week period (even though we're not a week in yet) but some may argue that it is unfair on other candidates. I would like to discuss just the first proposal alone first and see what everyone thinks about that. 16:34, September 9, 2011 (UTC)
 * I think the first proposal is fair, because from what I know, most voting is done in the first week, although I've only seen 3 RfB's while here. So I see no issues with changing the time down to two weeks.
 * Okay, seeing as this discussion has dried up, I'm just going to attempt to gain consensus on this and shorten the voting period. 17:18, September 23, 2011 (UTC)
 * I'd say support. -- RoseGui [[File:Thanks rose.png]] ( talk here ) 21:21, September 25, 2011 (UTC)
 * Seeing as this has been up for almost a month with no opposition, the voting time for bureaucrat nominations has been decreased to one week. 21:22, September 25, 2011 (UTC)

What to do with Unused Files
This month's cleanup is to use Unused Files. However, there are just some images that are either poor quality, have better quality image in other file name (e.g. icons), or simply not worth being added. Usually, these kind of files are left out in the Unused Files, which might reach few hundreds. I would like to consider that some of these files be deleted, if not possible to be added. This is so that we don't have files lingering to be added for good.

Let me say that some of them are also fanons which are left out and abandoned by the owners.  Nikel  Talk  12:02, September 16, 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes, but there are some files that we should keep and add into an article. -- RoseGui [[File:Thanks rose.png]] ( talk here ) 15:44, September 16, 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm hoping that we manage to get most of the ones in there used up if possible. However, a large component are from deleted fanon pages. I'm currently trying t find such images and delete them.
 * Basically, if the image is redundant due to a higher quality version or a deleted page then delete it and if you can add the image to an article, try to do so. 23:02, September 16, 2011 (UTC)
 * What's easier to manage for now is, the low quality icons which has been replaced with better ones. I will try to delete them one day, just to make sure nobody minds.  Nikel  Talk  09:04, September 17, 2011 (UTC)
 * Sounds good to me. Also, if anyone needs lots of files deleted feel free to give me a list of all the files on my talkpage in the form of File:imagename.whatever and I can perform a bot assisted mass delete of them.

Spotlight (again)
Seeing as we acted a little too soon on our original spotlight plans for the Pets release, I have submitted a new request which should (hopefully) come in just in time for the NA release of Pets. Seeing as RfA and RfB are now closed, we should have a good chance of getting it. I'm just hoping we didn't leave it too late. 20:43, September 24, 2011 (UTC)
 * It has just been approved, so is this talk still continuing or resolved?  Nikel  Talk  05:31, September 25, 2011 (UTC)
 * Wow that was quick XD. Anyway, I'm assuming it will be up in a month or so, and I'd advise all admins to be alert for vandalism and spamming when it's up.
 * Vandalism probably will go up but I'm sure we can handle it. I think once Pets is released, we can just make the release blog as usual and then hopefully it'll help us build up our userbase. 09:26, September 25, 2011 (UTC)
 * For those who haven't yet noticed, our spotlight image is up! :D 20:27, October 8, 2011 (UTC)

Disable Layout Builder
Wikia has released special:WikiFeatures, which more or less allows admins to turn things off easier, without needing a special:contact. One of the options which can be turned off is the layout builder, which is a tool that allows admins to make preset page layouts. I'm wondering if we should disable it, as new users use it to make pages which are often deleted due to poor quality, most likely caused by layout builder. So, should we disable it or not?
 * I agree. I think we should disable it. Layout builder is more-less a "template" for creating page, but it appears that the results are never good. It also seems to be locking the freedom to write our own layout. If I weren't mistaken, if we leave a section blank (e.g. family tree image), it will only make the page more messy.  Nikel  Talk  05:30, September 25, 2011 (UTC)
 * Couldn't agree more with what Nikel said just above. The only thing the Layout Giver has given us is mess. It may have increased fanon creation, but quality goes over quantity. Perhaps we should try to introduce newbies better to Wikia Features instead rather than giving them a ready (and always messy) layout. And concerning the layout, the once the family tree image is uploaded, it cannot be removed, only changed. Which destroys the whole article. |_<font type="Calibri" color="#A60914" size="2px">Andronikos Leventis <font type="Calibri" color="#1404A2" size="1.3px">Talk 08:30, September 25, 2011 (UTC)
 * While I am in support of disabling the layout builder, we should note that the layout builder would still be used for the pages that already utilise it. 09:27, September 25, 2011 (UTC)


 * I am in full support in removing this feature. -- Bob  ๑  11:28, September 25, 2011 (UTC)
 * I'd say full support. This feature has really caused a mess in many articles, especially in the fanon namespace, and because it's a very sensible namespace, layouts are lowering our quality in the namespace very quickly, if we don't remove them we might end up with loads of poor pages in the fanon namespace. -- RoseGui [[File:Thanks rose.png]] ( talk here ) 11:30, September 25, 2011 (UTC)
 * I support that! because many poor fanon created because that layout. --Wir.wiryawan 13:24, September 25, 2011 (UTC)
 * Given that there has been no opposition, I have disabled the layout builder. We can re-enable it if need be. 13:26, September 25, 2011 (UTC)

The Era Template
I know there were discussions before, but I'm going to start another one...

What are we going to do with the Era template? It was decided to not use it, however, the Era template is very useful, at least for me. Here's a small list of pros and cons about this template:

The Pros

 * The Era template makes pages tidier, because it shows which features appear in which games, without overfilling the page.
 * It doesn't take over a large amount of a page, and it's clearly visible.
 * It provides links to pages, which is good because it saves time.
 * Many pages already use this template, and it's proved to be good, besides the glitching.

The Cons

 * The Era template is known to cause glitching to pages.
 * It's a very complicated template, and in my knowledge Random Ranaun is the best when it comes to editing this template.
 * The template breaks easily if not edited correctly, and what's worse is that many pages already use this template.

Sooo... I'm curious... Should we put this template in use or no, because there's more games to be released which will need their own era template and it should be known for all users that this template is in use or isn't? <font face="Vladimir Script" size="3"> Vss2eip talk here  12:11, October 1, 2011 (UTC) The very last issue doesn't seem to be very crucial. It can be fixed anytime, unless I didn't catch what you meant. Also, Random Ranaun is responsible in keeping this template updated, but he seemed to be less active in the wiki. I wish someone would be able to make the template, or at least RR himself would teach us how.  Nikel  Talk  13:12, October 1, 2011 (UTC)
 * First, I was aware that this era caused glitches, but it was once fixed and I realized the template no longer caused glitch. So, if you know any glitch, will you state it? Because I haven't encountered any glitch since it's "fixed".
 * Oh! I has been fixed? =O I didn't know about that... I only read the text about the template here which states that it's not functioning correctly. Someone should remove that then... I mean, if it's really fixed. <font face="Vladimir Script" size="3"> Vss2eip talk here  13:20, October 1, 2011 (UTC)
 * I didn't say it's completely fixed, but it might be temporary. However, it looks quite fine in most pages. We need RR's input for the warrant, I believe. We mustn't rush now, because RR plays an important role in this template, unless he says he wants us to develop it.  Nikel  Talk  13:44, October 1, 2011 (UTC)


 * The biggest cons with the era template in my opinion are:
 * It's not practical to put the era template on every single page on the wiki.
 * When Wikia update the layout of wikis, it usually messes up the template and causes a new set of glitches and issues. Even minor changes tend to make large problems.
 * As Vss said, it's both a complicated and a difficult template in general. There have been cases where the template has disrupted the layout of many pages for almost a day's time in which nobody was exactly sure how to fix it.
 * What looks good in one skin may not look so good in another. It's hard to keep track of all the errors found in Oasis and Monobook, and even harder to fix one error and not causing another to pop up on the other skin.
 * It isn't needed in general. All pages clearly state in which game a Sim, etc, is found, usually in the page lead.
 * However, there are still some pros - Vss did a nice job of listing most of them. The template is tidy, easily seen, and it isn't excessively large. I have to admit that I like how Featured Articles and protected pages use the template, and perhaps we can even start using them more on some parts of the wiki. But I believe it's a bad idea to use them much more than only that. This discussion doesn't need to reach a consensus immediately - RandomRanaun's decision is important in this as he's been a massive help in the development of the template and I feel it would be respectful to leave a while for him to give any comments that he has. Besides, for now, the template is only being improved and is not being added to any pages, meaning that we can freely take a while to discuss this without any hassle. -- Bob  ๑  13:52, October 1, 2011 (UTC)
 * IMO it should be kept to just featured articles, it's kinda inconsistent how it is right now, being on some pages and not on others. As for implementation of the template, I could be able to add it to groups of similar pages, e.g. sims who are all from one ep very quickly with my bot account. I see the issue not as if it is possible to add it to every page, as it is, but rather if it shouldbe added to every page. As pointed out above it's not that necessary, but I have seen it used very effectively on other wikis, most prominently The Vault (fallout wiki).


 * Not only that but it is still somewhat glitchy, I've looked through the history of the page and I've noticed that it was created by RR back at the end of 2009. It's taken an enormous amount of changes to make it, both in the template itself and to the mediaWiki:common.css page.


 * As for the question of actually editing it, I could maybe try to work out how to edit it if I get time.

Redesign of monobook skin
I've recently switched from the normal wikia skin to monobook, which is an optional skin more like the monaco skin which was phased out. However, I've noticed our monobook skin is drab, dull and boring. So, to this end, I feel we should redesign it. I've started work on a first design for it on a test wiki. I feel our inferior monobook skin brings the look of the site down, and is old, and since many users are now switching to monobook since it is exempt from many of the major changess wikia implements, we should have it looking it's best. What do you think?
 * I agree, looking at our Monobook skin, it's very unattractive, especially since most of our templates and such directly cater towards the standard wikia skin. We should remember that there are others who use Monobook. If the first thing they see visiting our wiki is the ugly Monobook main page, we won't gain many new editors. —<font color="#008000">Random Ranaun (<font color="#00FF00">Talk to me! ) 02:45, October 6, 2011 (UTC)


 * I wholeheartedly agree. Even though Wikia do not focus on monobook any longer and there aren't a great amount of new users who use it (I'm speaking entirely out of experience so correct me if I'm wrong), there are still a large amount of users (most of them experienced editors) who use the skin. Catering to how they work on the wiki would be a step in the right direction for sure. -- Bob  ๑  06:23, October 6, 2011 (UTC)


 * I made a quick design for my own personal use, which is on the side of the page. Basically, I feel that we should keep a somewhat similar look to the standard skin while making it, well, monobook. The skin in the image can be found here. I've managed to work out things like how to acieve transparency of the page, and to round out or in some cases remove borders. As well as this, I'm trying to tweak a vector like skin as well (fyi, vector is the one used on wikipedia). Of course, it's only a work in progress and will be much different to a finished product - it goes without saying Rainbow Dash won't be in an actual TSW skin =P
 * I don't see why not. 07:00, October 6, 2011 (UTC)
 * What I want to know is, isn't Oasis skin set as default? I assume the only users who use monobook skin is senior users. But other than that, I agree if monobook should be improved.  Nikel  Talk  10:25, October 6, 2011 (UTC)


 * I don't think redesigning the Monobook skin should be an actual wiki-wide project, since our wiki is directly catered to the Oasis skin. However, if any users who want to redesign the skin should be free to do so. -- Bleeh <font color="#489094">(talk) <font color="#489094">(blog) 15:25, October 6, 2011 (UTC)
 * I agree with Bleeh. I think it could be redesigned if it's unattractive though. -- RoseGui [[File:Thanks rose.png]] ( talk here ) 17:13, October 6, 2011 (UTC)


 * I've made a new design that could be used, pictured on the image on the right. I'm not sure what I could use as a background, so I got a screenshot of Sunset Valley as the image. If you cilck on the image you should be able to get a larger version of it. If you want to try it for yourself, copy everything from this page into a page called User:yourusername/monobook.css, go to Special:Preferences and change the default skin yo use to monobook, and then refresh the page. If t doesn't work at first you may need to refresh one or two times, as I had to do when I made the actual thing.
 * Wogan, that is tremendous background! When I previewed the monobook, the first thing I found it the least attractive was the leftside navigation. I also think the other thing that makes difference is the width of monobook. But the width should be the specialty of monobook over oasis skin.  Nikel  Talk  10:45, October 7, 2011 (UTC)
 * I like the background too. I think it is possible to make some CSS modifications to Monobook (Uncyclopedia changed the look of it completely), so feel free to try. 16:24, October 7, 2011 (UTC)

Mandatory new navigation bar
Seeing as this will eventually become mandatory across the whole of Wikia (sadface) and we can activate it here for a trial, I'm asking whether or not we should activate the new navigation bar to try and get used to it. 21:05, October 7, 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm not jumping up and down with enthusiasm about it, either, but since it's coming whether we want it or not, we might as well get used to it. Dharden (talk) 21:11, October 7, 2011 (UTC)
 * I truned it on briefly yesterday to see what it looks like, and I noticed that the sim faces mosaic header thing doesn't work with it. We may have to ask someone how to get it to work with this new header. Other than that there's no issues.
 * Honestly, there is nothing really wrong with the navigation. We just need to get used to it. Other than the issue Wogan said (and hopefully there isn't more), we had better not moan this as much as this one.  Nikel  Talk  15:56, October 8, 2011 (UTC)

Requesting Merge
Hey there! I'm an administrator at the [http://Our Sims Medieval Wiki], to my understanding, The Sims Wiki and Sims Medieval wiki were in the proccess of a merge awhile back. In my opinion, there is no benefit to having two seperate wikis for very similiar topics. That is why, I would like to propose a merge. Our community in the Sims medieval wiki is VERY small and is decreasing. We currently have 478 articles of good quality, recently we received a wiki spotlight due to our efforts. As the Sims Medieval Wiki community decreases, I highly doubt we will have any new articles for awhile.

The Sims wiki would benefit from this merge, as the remaining of our community would move over here, along with the pages of the TSM wiki. Therefor, I would like to ask if this would be posible

Kind Regards,

Life Matters
 * We only just had a proposal for this not long ago, and I feel nothing would have changed. Not only that, but a lot of the content on the wiki is not of the best quality. I'm in opposition to this.
 * Sorry but I'm of the same opinion as WH. 06:48, October 10, 2011 (UTC)


 * I oppose this proposal, for the reasons Wogan pointed out. -- Bob  ๑  17:15, October 10, 2011 (UTC)
 * I disagree with the above points. I think both wikias would benefit a merge, but this is up to to The Sims Medieval wikia to decide. -- RoseGui [[File:Thanks rose.png]] ( talk here ) 17:25, October 10, 2011 (UTC)

Editorial for IGN about Sims 4
Hey all,

I'm penning a feature piece for IGN regarding what changes fans want to see in the Sims 4. If anyone wants to talk to me for a bit and help me out it would be greatly appreciated! Please let me know so I can send you my email address.

Best,

Jonathan Deesing