HRWiki talk:Old STUFF

From Homestar Runner Wiki

Revision as of 18:14, 27 November 2004

Rant and Roar

We need to move the "Fun Facts" debate/discussion/voting to the Talk pages of the specific articles. I now realize that this "Stuff" HRWIKI about page pure silliness.

By moving content discussion from the talk page to a common page we are simply no using the Wiki to its potential. If one gets a lack of response from a talk page, go ahead and make the change. BE BOLD.

-That is what the Talk page is for-

It has been said that many contributors will not check the talk page before making a change. Most everyone on the "Stuff" page are old hands. If newbies won't read the how-to why would they go to the "Stuff" page?

The popularity of the "Stuff" page is typical of a sloppy discussion forum and not an article based reference guide.

I think this will be an ongoing problem with this wiki because since the HR universe is finite, most of its content has already been catalogued. Still, many people want to contribute so we are left with an onslaught of "fun facts" and pointless articles on SB's Stool.

What we need is a Clean-Up page. Articles that need to be cleaned up for one reason or another are listed on the Clean-Up Page. This would include merge and redirects, and it could be used to flag pages with "fun fact" debates.

I think due to the nature of the "virus" email it will be a high water mark in the "did you notice that" department.

My 2 cents - [[User:Drhaggis|Dr Haggis]] 21:17, 22 Nov 2004 (MST)

Yes, that's what the talk page is for, but talk pages aren't organized. Sometimes when a problem gets big enough, a jury-rigged solution becomes less adequate. It's been pointed out that the STUFF page results in much more (and more precise) feedback than the use of talk pages does. In addition, for the first time we're all getting together and working out what makes a good fun fact. These things don't sound like "pure silliness" to me. The same argument can be made with Wikipedia and VfD: talk of deletion could just take place on the Talk page, but if they did it that way, it'd be spread too thin and much less would actually get done. Of course, a counterargument is that Wikipedia is much larger-scale, but I think the argument still applies since this is obviously doing good. As I've noted, by the way, people who wish to be bold can still just post their facts directly; there's just less of a chance that it'll be accepted. By the way, we could still use a clean-up page, but I think it needs to be separated from STUFF because of the potentially high volume. Time will tell... - [[User:furrykef|furrykef (Talk at me)]] 01:02, 23 Nov 2004 (MST)

Perhaps this has already been mentioned, but perhaps we should have individual STUFF fun facts on the talk pages of their respective pages under a subsection of their talk pages, and have links to talk pages that have STUFF'd items on this page. --Nerdular Nerdence 01:12, 27 Nov 2004 (MST)

Counterargument: having everything on one STUFF page still makes it easier to maintain. - [[User:furrykef|furrykef (Talk at me)]] 04:02, 27 Nov 2004 (MST)

I find it hard to call a 44Kb long page full of decline/delete/accept/keep that no one wants to read through easy to maintain. That's why I recommend this page be used to link to discussion pages for the toons. As long as people actually use it, then this page will link to pages that list fun facts under consideration. If you hadn't noticed, clicking edit on the STUFF page leads to some warning akin to this: "WARNING: Most browsers will barf on this page. It is too long." It really is too long, and will likely only get messier as time goes on. --Nerdular Nerdence 11:14, 27 Nov 2004 (MST)

General Comments and Rants

• I'm glad that we are finally addressing the crap fun fact issue. Whenever one sees the text "this may be a reference to...." it should just be cut. Not even voted on. If we don’t know, its not a fact. Speculate elsewhere.

And we shouldn’t confuse running gags with references. When The Cheat's head blows up, or there is a new game title in the Floppy Disk Container, those are running gags. When Strong Bad overtly mentions the email tape-leg, that’s a reference. When something appears in the background from another toon or email, that is not a "reference". Nor is the reusing of sound effects a "reference". -Drhaggis 16:02, 21 Nov 2004 (MST)

I agree. A true classification system such as the one you present needs to be drawn up. This would help with the problem of internal Homestar Runner references. Do you think something similar would also aide us with external references to real-life things as well? -- Tom 16:30, 21 Nov 2004 (MST)

I totally agree. The reason they use the same backgrounds/items/sounds is because it's easier than making a new one. And also,something should only be considered a pop culture reference if it's an exact quote or almost an exact quote. Isn't it possible that it's just a coincidence they're similar?-Miss Free Country USA

• When does a funfact become accepted or declined? After x votes? After x voting days? This is a great start, but it lacks structure. I think we have two days of voting. Comments/Suggestions/Did I not read something?-Fuzzy
  • Well, the idea was that the admins decide when something has had enough votes or been up long enough, though it doesn't have to be that way. - [[User:furrykef|furrykef (Talk at me)]] 21:19, 22 Nov 2004 (MST)
    • Well, what's the point of voting if the admins decide whether or not the fun fact has had enough votes. They could then say that their one vote is enough to veto 50 other peoples. There needs to be a set procedure, otherwise this whole voting thing is pointless. -Fuzzy
  • Not necessarily. I think the admins can be trusted to use good judgement in deciding whether or not to accept or decline an item. If it turns out that most people don't agree, then we can change that. - [[User:furrykef|furrykef (Talk at me)]] 00:56, 23 Nov 2004 (MST)

Starting to get on the wrong foot here...

First off, I'd like to revise the terms used for voting. Rather than "delete/keep", we should use "decline/accept" because we should mostly be voting on new fun facts, which brings me to my next point: already somebody has posted an item for little animal, which is an old e-mail with very few fun facts. I think it'd be preferable to move the disputed item to the Talk page in that case. We don't want to get more bureaucratic than necessary, that is, this page is meant to be here for pages that need it.

Of course, we don't have to do things my way. I'm just communicating my original intent. - [[User:furrykef|furrykef (Talk at me)]] 07:22, 22 Nov 2004 (MST)

It seems to me that even pages like "virus" could have the fun fact voting on its talk page. -Drhaggis 12:18, 22 Nov 2004 (MST)

I disagree, if disputed fun facts are just put on the Talk page, someone will just put it back with the facts, and then someone else will put it back in Talk, and it will just go back and forth. Unless you mean to set up a voting system in the Talk page. That would be alright, but I think that Select The Usable Fun Facts is better because users will know where to go about disputed fun facts, and if they were just on Talk, they might get overlooked. STUFF seems to be the better system. --Ogog 3:00, 22 Nov. 2004 (GMT)

I agree with Ogog. This has happened to me a few times. You take an irrelevant fun fact off and then 5 minutes later it is back. I have also tried posting to the talk page to try to clear up some irrelevant fun facts, but never got a response (see Talk:Halloween Fairstival). -Fuzzy

The talk page is intended to discuss the merits of article content. I would think a discussion is more likely to be overlooked here, outside article space, than with the article itself. -[[User:Drhaggis|Dr Haggis]] 13:07, 22 Nov 2004 (MST)

On the other hand, I believe this is already shown to be wrong because here there is both more breadth and more depth in fun fact discussions than there has ever been. (Discussions over "Yeah, no" don't count.) Clearly stuff's not getting overlooked. - [[User:furrykef|furrykef (Talk at me)]] 01:07, 23 Nov 2004 (MST)

I agree that, for the most part, most old articles don't need it. However, with certain disputed facts like the little animal one, it may be necessary, as that fact has been argued up and down for so long that we need SOME sort of consensus on it. --TheNintenGenius 13:53, 22 Nov 2004 (MST)

People that will ignore the voting on the Talk page will also ignore the voting on the STUFF page. If they won't read talk page why would they come here? Wikipedia has a 3 revert rule. If edits are going back and forth both parties risk being banned or frozen. - [[User:Drhaggis|Dr Haggis]] 16:28, 22 Nov 2004 (MST)

I think we should give this a chance. Like I said, NOBODY responded when I posted on the talk page of Halloween Fairstival. I posted on STUFF earlier today and have already had tremendous feedback. Which is strange, because you said that if people wouldn't go to the talk page, they wouldn't come here (yet you yourself have done just that). And, like you said, Wikipedia has a three revert rule. With STUFF, both parties don't have to be banned or frozen, only the party not following the vote. I don't think we should abandon this system after one day. Let's test it and see if it will work. -Fuzzy