HRWiki:Projects/Podstar Runner pages

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I'm similarly against Podstar Runner having been moved to Podstar Runner 2008 and the original title being disambig'd, largely because of all the disambiguation links that leaves us with, but also because I think the "Podstar Runner" title deserves more than just a disambig, having been one of the major features of H*R both times it was updated (even if I myself never made use of it, having not yet discovered H*R during Podstar's first run and having taken a break from H*R during its second run). RickTommy (edits) 13:00, 15 June 2024 (UTC)

The problem I see is that, with 15-17 years between us and either iteration, the "Podstar Runner" title can refer to two podcasts that have equal relevance in the modern day. You could argue that the 2006 one is more deserving of the title due to being the podcast that started the whole thing, or the 2008 one due to being the podcast that ended it, and I don't think either of these arguments hold much more weight than the other. Perhaps the disambiguation could be transformed into an article looking at the complete history of the podcasts? Anything shared between them could be moved off their own articles and onto the new one. The disambiguation links are also a concern, which I'll ask The Cheatbot about once we reach some kind of consensus. Gfdgsgxgzgdrc 21:41, 15 June 2024 (UTC)

I forgot about this page when I posted this edit. Here is a copy of my response for context:

I think the rename was a good thing, more explicitly keeping the two pages more clearly delineated. I did update several templates to point to the new page name so I got the ball rolling that way. But I think the appropriate step would be to go through the links and figure out which way the link needs to be updated. Also notice that there are a lot of User pages that don't need updating.

There's also the option of turning this page into its own article that covers commonalities between both Podstars.

So, I would agree that perhaps converting the disambiguation into a new page with content would not be a bad idea.

Also I wanted to mention that I think this is conceptually similar to HRWiki:Projects/Possible Page Disambiguations: we have two similarly-named items that must have cleaner disambiguations. --Stux 16:37, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

UPDATE: So I started working on some links. I realized that the 2006 and 2007 H*R.com updates pages should be linking to the Podstar Runner 2006 page since the 2008 did not exist yet. However, should this tweet point to 2006 or 2008? It's referring to Podstar in general, so perhaps having an "overall" article might make more sense? --Stux 17:02, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

I would be in favor of a merge, in a manner similar to Homestar Runner 20th Anniversary Show where there are clearly-delineated subheads between the two versions (2006 and 2008, in this case) to make redirects cleaner, but since the main conceit of the two pages (downloadable toons for an iPod) are so similar it can be easier to link to a single article. Other factors —

• Neither is active: In, say, March 2008, it was valuable to delineate "the currently-updated podcast feed" and "the no-longer-updated podcast from a few years ago". But with '08 removed from the navbar ~15 yrs ago, both feel like a historical feature that can be discussed in one place.
• No overlap: No toon (afaik) was hosted on both services, so being able to just link [[Podstar Runner]] without having to double-check which version it was issued on would be more straightforward
• Very similar structures: Both articles feature the same structure, having them joined together would help in making sure they are consistently formatted and avoid any unnecessary redundancy. -- Bleu Ninja 17:51, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

UPDATE: I've mocked up a combined "Podstar Runner" article in the Sandbox, mostly just writing a new lede and re-jiggering the two existing ones. I think Punkin Stencils is a good point of comparison for this article - the 2003 and 2007 iterations are very different in form, but in function they're nearly identical and it's more convenient to simply link "Punkin Stencils" rather than separating it out into three articles and repeating "they are printable stencils" in the lede of each one; similarly, each year can have its own Fun Facts section. -- Bleu Ninja 00:38, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

Nice job Bleu Ninja! I went over the mock-up and more or less compared them to the original pages and I think it looks good. I even added a tweet about the future of Podstar to both the 2008 page and the mockup. I am curious to know what everyone else who's participated in this discussion thinks. --Stux 11:49, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

Hi all, just wanted to provide a quick update: I've updated the mock-up to include the most recent changes from the 2008 page. I still haven't heard anything else so, I guess I can only conclude that it's okay to proceed with the merge? --Stux 16:35, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

Given recent activity on the sandbox, I've gone ahead and merged the mock-up into the article. I got the impression that there was consensus for the merge and it didn't make all that much sense that many article edits and fixes were going into the Sandbox history instead of the article's history proper.

I also updated the original pages to redirect into their relevant sections and moved the talk page back to Talk:Podstar Runner.

If nothing new pops up in the new few days I think we can most likely mark this project item as complete. --Stux 16:39, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

Stux - I notice you did it a little differently than I would have. I see that you moved the [[Talk:Podstar Runner 2008]] page to [[Talk:Podstar Runner]], but I would have moved the [[Podstar Runner 2008]] page back to its original title of [[Podstar Runner]] for history reasons, and then put the content there, maybe at the same time. Did you try to make that move, or did you just use the existing disambiguation page? The Knights Who Say Ni 01:27, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

Okay, I was wrong, and I admit it. Now I messed both pages up, and I can't put either page back to "Podstar Runner". Could I get some help from an admin? The Knights Who Say Ni 05:07, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

• Page moves are definitely tricky! Per the move page instructions, I understood that moves over existing pages only happens if that page is blank or is a redirect and has no other edit history. So I tried moving the blanked "Podstar Runner" page to "Podstar Runner temp2" and try to overwrite the new redirect but the system did not let me do that either! My guess is that it only works if you "change your mind" and want to move a page back to where it came from.
• For the time being, I renamed "Podstar Runner temp" content page to "Podstar Runner podcast" so at least it looks more encyclopedic, and then redirected "Podstar Runner" to "Podstar Runner podcast". (I'm not linking to the edits or page history in the assumption that they will be eventually deleted.)
• Regarding my rationale for the page move (and my apologies for not responding earlier, this item slipped through the cracks): The problem with moving the page history from Podstar Runner 2008 here is that we need someplace to put the history for the original "Podstar Runner" disambiguation page. In this case we'd have two options: move the disambiguation page over to "Podstar Runner 2008" (which we now know is far harder than it looks) or rename that page to "Podstar Runner (disambiguation)" and then have it redirect to the new "Podstar Runner 2008" page. TBH I just thought of the "Podstar Runner (disambiguation)" alternative.
• I figured that simply updating both Podstar Runner 2008 and Podstar Runner 2006 to be redirects to this page was simpler and seemed to make more sense than a straight merge. Especially since I was coming from the mindset that we were "converting" the disambiguation page into a full article. It hadn't occurred to me that this might work as a merge too.
• I moved the talk page here because Talk:Podstar Runner 2006 is almost empty and the disambiguation page had no talk page. This was, in essence a crime of opportunity! ;)

Anyway, this temporary redirect should work until we can get an admin's help to set things right. But I guess we should decide if it's worth doing a regular merge with the 2008 page and move the old disambiguation page to "Podstar Runner (disambiguation)". But that solution could be implemented after the fix. Maybe. Maybe not. Perhaps a decision should be made before requesting a fix. --Stux 15:53, 28 July 2024 (UTC)