The Sims Wiki talk:Admin Portal

Warnings
I'd like to make a few changes to the way we handle warnings, and specifically the warning and templates. Presently, we really only have two types of warnings; one for unconstructive edits, and another for negative behavior. I think it would be better to get rid of Warning2 and combine both into the Warning template, with the addition of another parameter. So, entering a warning would look something like this:

~ or ~ or ~

It could be set up to where there is a preset list of types which will produce a warning with different text, images and/or colors.

On a related note, Wikipedia has a policy adopted about removing comments from user talk pages; it says that messages on talk pages shouldn't be re-added if removed, as doing so would force a user to keep a badge of shame. I think this is reasonable, so I'd also like to remove any requirement to keep warnings on user talk pages. Since everything is still kept in edit history, it wouldn't be difficult to determine whether someone has already been warned. -- Patrick (LostInRiverview) (talk)(blog)(random page) 17:27, August 10, 2010 (UTC)


 * It sounds good to me, thumbs up. I also support the idea of scrapping the 1 week rule of not deleting the warning. As long as people issueing the warning put 'warning' in the edit summary, we can always spot it if need be. Duskey ( talk ) 22:53, August 10, 2010 (UTC)


 * I would suggest something like:

I mean just the colors, I haven't changed the wording of the final warning. Duskey ( talk ) 14:19, August 23, 2010 (UTC)


 * One suggestion; on the temp block template, include in the 2nd parameter a spot for time... so instead of it saying something like August 27, 2010, it will give the exact time when a block expires (August 27, 2010 at 12:37:00) -- 00:37, August 27, 2010 (UTC)


 * I can easily do that, but it'll be harder for North Americans since the times listed on the block list is in local time and we should output time in UTC. Duskey ( talk ) 16:10, August 27, 2010 (UTC)


 * Here's a suggestion for a catch-all rewording of the warning template:

We are warning you because of This is a friendly reminder to refrain from making unconstructive edits to The Sims Wiki. Your edits have been reverted. If you would like to experiment, please use the sandbox, or if you need help please either read the policy or ask an administrator. You may remove this warning once you have read and understood its meaning. If you continue to vandalize you may be blocked.
 * The reason field should be used to explain what sort of incident it was. I'm not sure I see much point in having multiple warning templates or even a final warning template if we keep the wording flexible enough. Personally I've always notified a person if they've done something borderline. If it happens again, I warn them and the third time it's a block. This is all situational of course. Duskey ( talk ) 20:02, August 29, 2010 (UTC)


 * I updated the wording in both warning and tempblock. If you ask me I'd say they're complete now. -- Duskey talk 02:43, September 6, 2010 (UTC)

TSW on other sites
Moved from the community portal talk

Discussion
Should we register TSW on other sites? I'm thinking facebook and twitter and all that. I'm gonna list some pros and cons:
 * Pros
 * Might attract more visitors.
 * Can help relay info without people visiting the site.
 * Can help relay info without people visiting the site.


 * Cons
 * Shared password.
 * Abuse/vandalism.
 * Inter-admin drama for not gaining access to accounts.
 * Inter-admin drama for not gaining access to accounts.


 * Suggested sites
 * Google Groups (for sharing passwords between admins)
 * Twitter
 * Facebook
 * Youtube

Personally I'm not a facebook man so I can't comment much on that, but I am beginning to see the advantages of Twitter. We could use it to post whenver we put up a blog post which goes in 'The Sims Wiki News' window, this means people following us on Twitter would get an update without having to check the site. It also means people can follow us vis RSS. At the moment our RSS feed is a standard 'recent changes' enabled by default by Wikia. Additionally we can use it for more general Sims 3 news as well, such as 'The Sims 3: Late Night announced, info available on the wiki' or something like that. I'd certainly be up for it. I already registered a Twitter account with our name in my email. If we do go ahead and adopt this idea, we'll probably need a joint email as well. Duskey ( talk ) 21:30, July 28, 2010 (UTC)
 * Comments

The problem with all this is that is encourages stuff going on behind closed doors, which is really against the whole wiki concept, but I can see where it will come in handy. So far for affiliates I've been using my own email, but we could use a joint on as well. Another problem is, who do we give access to those servies? I mean the email and the twitter. Who should get the password? And I can already foresee the complaints about there being a 'club' within the administrator ranks which new admins might feel excluded from since they do not have access to the same tools as other admins do. Duskey ( talk ) 21:30, July 28, 2010 (UTC)

Yet another hurdle is vandalism or abuse. We need administrators to keep on eye on these external services to prevent abuse and how do we handle it if an admin with password for the stuff goes rogue. I'm quite sure we would be unable to retrieve the accounts. Duskey ( talk ) 21:30, July 28, 2010 (UTC)

Another thing: We'll need a place where we can share the passwords of these accounts. Nicmavr has suggested Google groups, so all you need a is a google account to join. Duskey ( talk ) 14:54, July 29, 2010 (UTC)

I added 'suggested sites' above. Duskey ( talk ) 12:57, July 31, 2010 (UTC)

I've made a Twitter so you can preview it: http://twitter.com/thesimswiki I even pimped it out in our colors etc. Duskey ( talk ) 08:18, August 6, 2010 (UTC)


 * Twitter page looks good. I have been posting to Facebook with Wikia's Facebook Connect. --a_morris (talk) 19:05, August 8, 2010 (UTC)


 * Cool. I'm not a FB user, so I can't really help there. How do you like Google Groups for password sharing among admins with access to the stuff? Unless anyone has any crazy objections I'd like to fire off the Twitter page in the coming days. Duskey ( talk ) 19:27, August 8, 2010 (UTC)


 * Moved from the community portal discussion. Duskey ( talk ) 14:35, August 14, 2010 (UTC)
 * Created The Sims Wiki:Admin Portal/sites. Duskey ( talk ) 15:31, August 14, 2010 (UTC)

The next step
What's the next step? The way I see it we just use Twitter to announce our news posting which go on the main page. Remember to include links directly to the post in Bit.ly format. Facebook should probably contain similar postings, I have no idea how that works though (Facebook that is).

The Google group is only used so all invited admins have the passwords. The Gmail is only used since all these sites (Twitter, Bit.ly etc) required an email to register. It should only be used for affiliation emails. It should not be used as a contact email, we have the wiki for that.

Personally I would hold off announcing all this until we get it on the right tracks, meaning all active 'crats control the google group and we make some userboxes like "I'm following TSW on Twitter" etc. Duskey ( talk ) 15:50, August 14, 2010 (UTC)


 * I've created a Facebook page for The Sims Wiki and linked (export Facebook posts to Twitter) it to our Twitter account. I am the admin of the page but I can add others through Facebook friends or email. --a_morris (talk) 18:46, August 14, 2010 (UTC)


 * A toddler informed me that there's now two FB pages on our Wiki, is this intentional? What do you mean you linked it to our twitter? Does this mean twitter posts will show up on facebook? Duskey ( talk ) 20:19, August 14, 2010 (UTC)


 * The page that was linked here before was not "owned" by anyone and therefore could not be posted to or administered in anyway. The second one is administered by me so far. I'm not positive if twitter posts will show up on facebook. It is either facebook -> twitter or facebook <-> twitter. --a_morris (talk) 21:30, August 14, 2010 (UTC)


 * Clarifying: The link only goes facebook to twitter. The Twitter app on facebook can make posts only to personal profiles not pages but other applications can. --a_morris (talk) 17:14, August 15, 2010 (UTC)


 * I've made Template:Top area. I figure we'll use this on the main page when we decide to launch these sites. Duskey ( talk ) 16:11, August 27, 2010 (UTC)

Like Button code
Like Button code:



or



Announced
It's announced! We're not officially on Twitter, FB & YT. Can I get someone on FB to add the Twitter widget there? This way we won't HAVE to update both places. Duskey ( talk ) 22:16, August 28, 2010 (UTC)

RIPBrandibroke
''Resolved: User: has been permanently banned due to repeated vandalism and bad behavior. This matter is not open for discussion from regular users.'' -- 22:47, September 11, 2010 (UTC)

Since this persons 1 month block was up, they tried to provoke a response from administrators by posting about their previous vandalism. When that didn't work they started trolling Monster, including a threat to "ban" him. RIPBrandibroke was blocked on June 7 2010 for 1 week for vandalising articles with "fanon" and on July 5 2010, this time for 1 month, for the same thing. Monster has as of today blocked them for 1 year, but I would like to suggest a permanent block based on that I do not think this user has any interest in redeeming themself. I would also suggest that the vandal bragging on the user page and blog be deleted. Duskey ( talk ) 11:57, August 23, 2010 (UTC) I already perma. blocked him.-- Danny (Monster2821) (talk)(random page) 12:00, August 23, 2010 (UTC) i think he has a sock puppet to.-- Danny (Monster2821) (talk)(random page) 12:09, August 23, 2010 (UTC)


 * I noticed an auto-block triggering after their block, which means they have another account. Bleeh pointed out that here they sign their name with Iesha. Bleeh remembered that name as a former vandal and sure enough User:Iesha Parsons, blocked for 3 days on July 13, 2010. If you see their user pages   the writing is almost identical. Iesha's contributions also reveal that they've been editing RIPBrandibroke's talk page as if it was their own . I'm fully convinced that it is the same person, I'm just looking for some backup before blocking it as well. As long the RIPBrandibroke's block is up, they will only be able to edit from the other account if they switch IP's somehow so we don't need to rush this decision, but I'd sleep better at night knowing all their sockpuppets were gone. Duskey ( talk ) 16:41, August 24, 2010 (UTC)
 * I see Monster blocked that account as well. Duskey ( talk ) 10:01, August 25, 2010 (UTC)

Inappropriate player story
No longer relevant: Deleted player story was re-added by the administrator that deleted it. -- 22:49, September 11, 2010 (UTC) Monster recently deleted a player story and said it was inappropriate I read it through and I'm not quite sure if it deserved being delete. It contains homo-sexuality, woohoo and infidelity, which are all gameplay elements in The Sims series. It also contains the word sexy. I'd say it's borderline. I'm mostly leaning towards not deleting it, but I'm not sure. -- Duskey talk 02:20, September 6, 2010 (UTC)
 * I say undelete. That doesn't seem all that inappropriate, to be honest. -- Patrick (LostInRiverview) (talk)(blog)(random page) 03:16, September 6, 2010 (UTC)


 * It was undeleted long ago. Matter resolved. -- Duskey talk 19:46, September 10, 2010 (UTC)

Admin Portal talk page archives
As you may notice, a few resolved discussions have been archived. I encourage you to go to the archive and check it out, since I think it may be a feature we want to duplicate, especially for discussion pages that have multiple archive pages. The system on the Admin Portal talk archive hides all discussions except those which the reader wants to see, allowing a person to easily find the discussion they're looking for without tons of needless scrolling. Further, I kept the checkmark/x mark 'resolved' statement out of the hidden table, since it gives a brief discussion of the outcome, and is useful in that regard. Any improvements to the layout are appreciated. I'll soon write up a brief description of how to add more items to that archive, but first...

I have been operating off an unspoken rule, made by me. I think, though, that it's worth discussing. I have been operating under the following "rules"; 1) a discussion will be ruled as "resolved" (and thus given a green check or red 'x') after it is apparent that no more discussion will be introduced; it's up to the individual admin in that case to determine if more discussion is still a significant possibility. After the discussion is considered resolved, I have kept it on this page for a few more weeks, so that readers (specifically admins) can take note of the decision and possibly re-open the discussion if needed. After that period, I have archived the contents. I think this system is ideal, as it gives plenty of time for review and discussion before the information is moved.

What are your thoughts, either on the "storage system" in the archive, or the rule of thumb regarding when discussions are resolved and when they're moved to the archives? -- Patrick (LostInRiverview) (talk)(blog)(random page) 22:39, September 11, 2010 (UTC)
 * A thing to notice is that the discussions were not archived in a typical order, but rather were archived based on the date that they were resolved. I think this is idea since often discussions can stretch over many months, or may be brought up and resolved relatively quickly. In this way, newly resolved discussions can be added chronologically in-order to the archive on an individual basis, rather than en masse. Thoughts on that as well? -- Patrick (LostInRiverview) (talk)(blog)(random page) 22:52, September 11, 2010 (UTC)


 * I think it's a wonderful system, but I do think we should call it something other than an archive and maybe call it... resolved issues or something. To me an archive is still for when a talk page gets too large, then you move old discussions there. In my opinion the "resolved issues" can still have the archive header, but should have a different nav window to link to them, perhaps similar to the "Important discussions elsewhere" on the CP (Community Portal) talk page. -- Duskey talk 10:02, September 12, 2010 (UTC)


 * Moved archive to The Sims Wiki talk:Admin Portal/resolved discussions. As for the navigation, I'll leave it alone for now since I'm not entirely sure what you're going for. -- Patrick (LostInRiverview) (talk)(blog)(random page) 15:07, September 12, 2010 (UTC)


 * Check Template:Resolved/mini


 * Can that be used for the resolved stuff? I've seen something similar on Wikipedia. -- Duskey talk 15:00, September 14, 2010 (UTC)
 * Updated the template to be smaller. -- Duskey talk 01:16, September 20, 2010 (UTC)

Do not move images to replace
Heads up. After thinking I was clever by moving a better image over a similar image of poor quality, I discovered that it wasn't possible. The old image was still at the original location and the new image had been deleted. I contacted Wikia and they said it's a bug in the MediaWiki version they're currently using. It might be fixed in a new version, but Wikia will most likely not upgrade until some time after the whole Oasis business since that's their focus at the moment.

tldr: Don't move files to replace another file. -- Duskey talk 15:00, September 14, 2010 (UTC)