Forum:Eliminating theories

I'd like to propose that The Sims Wiki eliminates Player Theory subpages (i.e. Bella Goth/theories). My reasoning for this proposal is as follows:
 * Theories added to these pages are often unsigned, sparse in content, profane or unacceptably hostile. For example, I stumbled on one theory that consisted of: "'hello. stop posting this trash and garbage!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! our father works for Maxis and our mother works for Electronic Arts. so we know everything about SIMS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! anyway our parents caught sight of these rumor pages and called the police to remove it. so we were mad and said that we would answer your questions so they woould not take it off and so you don't have to put rumors anymore.'" This was added as a theory over a year ago it basically constitutes trolling, which is unacceptable in its own right.
 * Theories are near impossible to moderate (see the above example) due to their size.
 * Most users do not contribute to these pages anyway - most of the theories were written by anonymous users who decided not to stick around.
 * Like the player stories situation, users wanting to perform maintenance on these articles are being caught up by the AbuseFilter because of the high levels of profanity on these pages.

Given that there's not a large number of these articles, I don't think we need to worry too much about how we are going to, if we choose to, delete them - a bot or even a user could do it.

Please discuss below. 10:25, September 22, 2013 (UTC)

Discussion
I don't think that we should eliminate them, but we should remove things like one you listed. Mate1234 (talk) 12:00, September 22, 2013 (UTC)
 * The problem we have is that there are a lot of theories like the example I listed that picking them out one by one is going to place a heavy burden that if we're going to do anything at all, we may as well eliminate them completely for the reasons I listed above. 12:10, September 22, 2013 (UTC)
 * I support the elimination. As Lab said, the theories are lacking in detail and in content and it is tricky to moderate all theory pages. Beds (parlare - da leggere ) 12:53, September 22, 2013 (UTC)
 * I see... There are a lot of theories, and some of them are made by the person who thinks that his/her parents founded Maxis. In this case, remove them, and ignore my first comment. Mate1234 (talk) 12:59, September 22, 2013 (UTC)
 * I recently archived the theories. Honestly, I only skimmed and corrected the layout without actually checking the contents. I must've missed a lot there because the Abuse Filter detected profanity, at which I asked for Lab's help to find where the profanity was. I also missed the example Lab gave above.


 * Now, I'm pretty sure we that while we discussed about eliminating Player Stories, we mentioned some things about whether removing Theories or not. Maybe it's somewhere between the lines, but I couldn't find it. I didn't remember what we talked about Theories in the discussion either. I guess I said that we could keep it because Theories weren't as abundant as Player Stories; only certain Sims actually had Theories, not all; and Theories might have had less traffic than Player Stories, so it would be less difficult to moderate, though Bella's theories is an exception.


 * I'm unsure about my decision now. While on one side, the Bella theories (the longest theories in the wiki, followed by Olive Specter's, Lolita Goth's, Don Lothario's, and Kaylynn Langerak's) have been archived, it can now be started from scratch and moderated all over. But this might not last forever, or even, for long. I also can't say much about existing theories, since there might be even more trolling theories. We might be able to wipe all theories out and start moderating it from now on, but like I said, I fear that we won't be able to overcome it. I would tend to support to eliminate the theories, though.  Nikel  Talk  –  Vote!  15:05, September 24, 2013 (UTC)
 * One of the biggest reasons I supported the deletion of player stories was their volume, and the fact that so many of the stories pages were empty stubs. This isn't really the case with theories, though. But, other valid points are raised about them. Ultimately, I'm undecided. --  LostInRiverview talk ~ blog 15:21, September 24, 2013 (UTC)
 * I am neutral to what we do with them. I kind of see them as related to Player Stories, but I don't see any problem with leaving them there. Also as a suggestion for if we do decide to get rid of them: maybe in their place, we could add a whole slew of Theories userboxes, so that Users can still state their opinion without the Theories page being around. 17:00, September 27, 2013 (UTC)

Voting
This thread has been sitting largely unresolved for a couple weeks. In order to reach some conclusion, I'm starting a week-long vote. -  LostInRiverview talk ~ blog 04:12, October 16, 2013 (UTC)

Question: Do you support eliminating Theories pages on The Sims Wiki? Please answer with "support," "oppose," or "neutral." This vote will last for seven days. Time remaining:

Support --Frostwalker Talk to me! 04:18, October 16, 2013 (UTC)

Support -  LostInRiverview talk ~ blog 04:34, October 16, 2013 (UTC)

Support - Beds (parlare - da leggere ) 09:33, October 16, 2013 (UTC)

Support - as proposer. 11:09, October 16, 2013 (UTC)

Support -  Nikel  Talk  –  Vote!  11:56, October 16, 2013 (UTC)


 * Wow, this vote was completely forgotten. Still, the result was in favor of deletion. I'll be writing a news blog post shortly to explain the situation. In the meantime, I'll keep this thread open to discuss any other eventualities --  LostInRiverview talk ~ blog 15:09, October 25, 2013 (UTC)

Restart
As per this blog post, I've restarted this discussion. Please read the blog for an explanation as to why. --  LostInRiverview talk ~ blog 15:30, October 25, 2013 (UTC)


 * I should clarify - this isn't a re-vote, but a restart of the discussion. Also, if it were a vote, a vote "For" would be in support of deletion. --  LostInRiverview talk ~ blog 16:31, October 25, 2013 (UTC)
 * Well...If...This Is About Theory....Like How - Bella Goth Story??.... If Pretty Sure If I am [Administer]?? I Would Keep Those Theory.....Because It's Kind Of Thing We Help To Make Some Mystery Complete...


 * Okay.. i Read Again.... And Im Now Sure..!! I Love To Read ..About Bella/Olive Or Even The Other..!! So Please Keep Those Theory!!! Sense19 (talk) 07:47, October 26, 2013 (UTC)
 * Funny how your name is Sense19, but I can't make sense of your comment. Anyways, I think that they aren't really needed, we could possibly put widespread speculations on the main character/whatever page, but only widespread, and not personal. And widespread speculations already appear on these kind of pages anyways. I don't see a point in the pages anymore. --Snowstormer (T C) 14:26, October 31, 2013 (UTC)


 * Sense19, please remain objective on how we should handle the theories. We can't keep them just because you love to read them.


 * As an administrator standpoint, I feel that keeping the theories is pretty difficult to moderate. As a non-administrator standpoint, I find that they're mostly worthless. These theories are something to read, not something to discuss. So even after we read someone's theory, there's nothing much we can do anyway since no one will respond. This is unlike something you can discuss in a talk page, blog, or even a forum thread.  Nikel  Talk  –  Vote!  15:53, October 31, 2013 (UTC)
 * Perhaps we could encourage users to discuss player theories on the Game Discussions forum, or create a new sub-forum for game theories? That way, people who want to read and present theories could do so, and other users could respond to the theories as well. --  LostInRiverview talk ~ blog 16:41, October 31, 2013 (UTC)
 * I like the idea of encouraging users to discuss theories on the Game Discussions forum. I also like the idea of creating a new sub-forum for theories. Would be easier for maintenance as the forums are actively monitored. Beds (parlare - da leggere ) 17:00, October 31, 2013 (UTC)
 * I think that would work, and it would be easier to manage than pages spread all throughout the wiki. Dharden (talk) 17:47, October 31, 2013 (UTC)
 * The forum idea sounds like a fair solution. 18:28, October 31, 2013 (UTC)
 * I've been considering a proposal to expand the forums... given the warm response here, I'll include a subforum for player theories as part of the proposal. --  LostInRiverview talk ~ blog 20:30, October 31, 2013 (UTC)

I don't see the necessity to enforce forums as a replacement of theories. Don't get me wrong, I like and support the idea, but I just don't want to think "theories are now eliminated, and we now should use forums to share and discuss about your stories/theories". You see, the forums have always been there, users could've used them all along, but we're trying to emphasize them just now.

I was just giving a comment though. I'd love to see if we could develop the forum as a better way to share stories.  Nikel  Talk  –  Vote!  14:32, November 1, 2013 (UTC)


 * Per above about the Forum idea. I think I'll agree with that. --Frostwalker Talk to me! 06:31, November 2, 2013 (UTC)


 * Support. Speculation like this doesn't really add anything to a wiki, in my experience. Theories are really more a matter of fanon - in the absence of official explanations. The forum would be a better setting to have discussions like these. &mdash; Lexmechanic (talk) 17:47, November 4, 2013 (UTC)

Delete or archive
Alright, based on the discussion above, Beds and I have created the Player theories forum. I've also notified the public about the creation of the theories, and am about to lock down the existing theories pages. My question is - should we save the pages as a permanent archive, or delete them? --  LostInRiverview talk ~ blog 00:22, November 10, 2013 (UTC)
 * I'd say archive them. That way if users wish to post their theories in the forums, they could simply retrieve them from the archives. Then again, if that is done, we could perhaps delete them if we see double theories appearing. Beds (parlare - da leggere ) 00:26, November 10, 2013 (UTC)
 * I don't see any good thing can come from deleting them. So I'd say we should archive them instead. It'll give users the chance if they ever wish to read those theories again. More importantly, Some users have already posted theories on more than one article which I believed it's difficult to locate them back and save them before the deletion started. --<font face="Verdana"> Frostwalker  <font face="Comic Sans MS"> Talk - <font face="Comic Sans MS"> Read 03:59, November 10, 2013 (UTC)
 * I'd say delete based on my proposal but I'm more in the middle with this. We can use Special:Abusefilter to prevent edits to these pages and that would be easier than deleting though there are a lot of "sub par" theories that aren't worth keeping but are also a hassle to delete. Either way I'm ambivalent towards either option. 22:37, November 10, 2013 (UTC)
 * I say archive them, at least for now. As noted, some people may want to refer to them. Beside, if we later decide to reconsider, it's easier to reconsider a decision to archive than one to delete. Dharden (talk) 00:09, November 12, 2013 (UTC)
 * I'd say eventual deletion, like what we did to Player Stories. We could archive them for the time being and let some users retrieve their theories if they want to. After about a month of archival or so, we could delete them.  Nikel  Talk  –  Vote!  05:17, November 13, 2013 (UTC)

Conclusion
The general consensus here seems to be towards keeping the old pages archived. If that opinion should change in the future, the matter should be brought up in a new forum thread. --  LostInRiverview talk ~ blog 02:54, December 18, 2013 (UTC)