 |
This forum page has been archived. Please do not make any further edits unless they are for maintenance purposes. |
|---|
Back in the primordial days of Nukapedia when the anons ran wild and admins still rode megasloths, we used to host these meetings of the minds, where the entire staff would get together in a productive space and pitch innovative new ideas that could potentially help improve the wiki and its community.
With our recent affiliation with the datamining community, we have seen a great influx of new ideas and innovations being pitched by these new perspectives flooding onto the wiki, especially regarding Fallout 76, and bringing back these monthly meetings will give our community a chance to discuss them all in a more rooted environment, with the sole purpose of looking for ways to continually improving our wiki for the Fallout fans that use us as a resource.
F.A.Q.:
Why have these meetings of the mind?
- To put a fine point on it, our forums are dead. They're still necessary of course, but we very frequently have important
discussions and even votes that are either ignored or not even noticed, and that is 100% a problem. /d is lively enough,
but doesn't have the functionality we need to hold any sort of quality meeting space with enforced speaker etiquette.
So that leads me into...
Where are we going to host these meetings?
- Historically speaking, our chat-room has been the best place to hold these sorts of meetings. It's even easier now these
days with Discord, as we can use roles to help set the etiquette we'll need to allow everyone to have their say without the
chaos of everyone trying to speak all at once.
- I know that this isn't the perfect medium for everyone, but unfortunately, it's the best I can come up with unless
someone else is able to come up with a better alternative.
What if I can't make it to one of these meetings?
- In the past we've always had a summary of each meeting's minutes, but they weren't exactly super great quality. For
future meetings, we'll be providing a transcript of everything said, transcribed over onto the wiki for anyone to look
back over as they see fit.
Who all can talk at these meetings?
- Meetings we had in the past were usually reserved for staff only, but I'd really like to change that up going forward.
Unfortunately there's just not enough time in the day to let every single person have their say, but we will still try and let
everyone express themselves should they have an opinion on something being discussed.
- Regardless, everyone is allowed to pop in and read these meetings as they progress, and if you'd like to join in on the
fun, Just message an admin and we'll see what we can do!
How long will these meetings run?
- The time it takes to thoroughly discuss the topics brought forth are going to wildly vary, and there's going to be no way
we can guarantee how short or how long each meeting can be. Not everyone is going to have the time to dedicate hours
towards every meeting, and so there's always the chance that exhaustive topics will be discussed over multiple meetings
if that's what it takes.
- Want to use the next meeting to discuss something you feel is important? Go ahead and pitch your ideas here, and we'll do our best to add them to the agenda! 寧靜 
07:43, November 3, 2020 (UTC)
Suggestions[]
kate ideas[]
- I would like to briefly remind or introduce everyone to the Vault Academy, explain the different programs and ask for people to point new editors in our direction if at all possible.
- I want to discuss ways in which we can actively blend discussions and editing, brainstorm ideas to engage wiki editors in discussions and likewise bring users active in discussions over to editing.
- It would be helpful to introduce any new rights users to the group at each meeting. Even if the rights user cannot attend, it would be good to make everyone aware and encourage everyone to stop by their talk page to give them a warm welcome.
- I want to pitch the idea of having a technical role created that would parallel content moderator but not for wiki content itself. A sort of rights user that could even be similar to interwiki, with a solid understanding of wiki editing but a focus on behind the scenes work. To handle js, updates, template building, work with comods and admin to create more robust ways of organizing our data and be the contact people for any issues, problems, or suggestions.-kdarrow
take her for a spin! 08:54, November 3, 2020 (UTC)
dyre wolf[]
- "Absentee speakers" would be one thing to explore. So long as meetings of the mind are scheduled with reasonable enough time, we could allow for users who are key to a specific discussion but are unable to attend, to have some sort of write up of their thoughts available. With users coming from various time zones and employment/other IRL responsibilities being what they are, it is likely there will be instances where scheduling conflicts prevent someone critical from being able to participate in a meeting. It may not be as ideal as having them present, but it at least offer their talking points up for the participating members.
- Another thing to look at would be to have a pre-meeting forum available. The old forums still ultimately matter for the purposes of seeing changes made and offer strengths which cannot be replicated by a chat format, such as letting information have time to breath and be processed, which is much more difficult to do in a 45min get-together. So we will still need to rely on forums with these meetings acting as a supplementary discussion. With that in mind we ought to consider a literal open forum here which would lead up to the monthly meeting. This would give time for the users who are not able to speak during the meeting to present their issues, thoughts, etc. before hand so that any of these items could be considered by the staff. It might also draw some life back into the forums, as people who want to participate more come to see the forums as a convenient place to do so.
- While meetings are in progress, we may also want to consider having dual channels dedicated to the meeting. The primary channel as outlined exactly as above, and the second channel being open to everyone and monitored by (some poor bastard) who can be at desktop during that meeting and relay any solid points made in the second channel to the first channel.
- And, as always, if we are just pitching roles in the suggestions, I would argue for the need to have an admin level position available that is not as exclusively focused on editing, since admin authority is not exclusively limited to editing. While that certainly has its place, we have an admin roster which is almost uniformly dedicated to editing alone, with barely any focus on Discussions. In about a month or so, Kate outpaced the total number of posts all of her peers combined for the year. Considering her contributions as an editor, it would be unfair to toss the entire responsibility of being the voice of Discussions in Overseer's Desk, especially since her posts (while greatly appreciated) do not have her in the top 25 most active users. Just a thought. The Dyre Wolf (talk) 16:42, November 3, 2020 (UTC)
- But, but, I am in the top 25 users, at least as of this morning. Your idea is a solid one, though, despite my nonsense. -kdarrow take her for a spin! 22:31, 11 November 2020 (UTC)
- But, but, I am in the top 25 users, at least as of this morning. Your idea is a solid one, though, despite my nonsense. -kdarrow
- Also, what time are we thinking? I saw the date, but I didn't catch the time we were looking to start. Guess this isn't so much a suggestion as it is just a question. The Dyre Wolf (talk) 17:47, 13 November 2020 (UTC)
camel's chip[]
- Guideline creation for references! Currently, we have no policies or guidelines dictating how material should (or should not) be referenced. There's a sort of unspoken standard, sure, but newer users (which we happen to have an influx of) can't find the explicit formats. I know Ant has been pushing this idea for months in the forums, but it's gone nowhere. A while back, I used the baseline content from Ant's drafts (which largely came from The Vault) to create an explicit, easy-to-read set of ref rules in a new sandbox. Kate added some things, too, and even implemented them into her own Vault Academy lessons. I think it's very important to have our standardized ref formats written somewhere and really want to push this idea.
- As a note, The Vault had a set of ref guidelines, but, as stated in previous forums, they're terribly unwieldy as-is; that is, they're hard to read and process for the average user. Simply importing wouldn't be enough; creating visual examples and explicit rules in an easy-to-read format is a must. Also, while the majority of the ref guidelines are similar to those we already use here, there are some (like external link formatting) that aren't as clear-cut or widely agreed upon. These extra guidelines would require a bit more discussion than ones we already seem to consistently follow.
Aiden4017[]
Not sure if this is the place for it, but I feel it is worth mentioning. While this falls under the Vault Academy, and a major point of the meeting is the new software Fandom has implemented, I thought I'd leave some of the errors I've run into as a starting point for the meeting so people will know of them going into the meeting, so feel free to mention any you've run into.
- Source Editor:
- Attempting to remove bullet pointed content leaves a gap in the page in the space that content was. This is an issue I've caused (sorry).
- Visual Editor:
- Now automatically inserts fields into the Infobox, and because they aren't filled they don't show up in the visual editor, leaving the contributor unaware of them. This is an issue I've seen multiple times, where a single edit inserts a dozen fields that we don't use into the page.
Aiden4017 (talk) 07:18, 15 November 2020 (UTC)
Transcript
| Transcript |
|---|
| 2020 November Meeting of the Minds transcript |
