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[Deathworks]

Hi!

G-Flex: There are two things I want to point out.

First of all, my argument about deleting completely incorrect text goes along with the problem Draco18s mentions:

And the reader doesn't really have a choice in this matter, what is on the page is what is on the page.  It's not a Game FAQs walkthrough where you have 10 or 12 to search from and get to pick the one that has the best rating.

It is counterintuitive to tell readers: "Well, this is the only information we will give you on wells, but even though it is a lengthy article it is actually incorrect and utterly useless for you. Have a nice day."  (P.S.: I just picked wells as one item in the game, I have not read the wells' article in years (^_^;; )

Secondly, I still don't see the necessity to attack the contributors when commenting on articles on the wiki. As you say yourself, the wiki needs the readers to contribute. And you certainly encourage contributors by showing them that if their article is not perfect by your standards, you will publicly denounce it as "lousy", "rotten", or whatever. I think that such a behavior only makes people more hesitant to contribute, especially if English is not their native tongue.

Deathworks

EDIT: Corrected stupid broken sentence in after the secondly, and clarified target

[Draco18s]

On a topic of quality, you know what needs updating?

The Quality Article!  It's blank!

Edit: not any more it isn't

[G-Flex]

Hi!

G-Flex: There are two things I want to point out.

First of all, my argument about deleting completely incorrect text goes along with the problem Draco18s mentions:

And the reader doesn't really have a choice in this matter, what is on the page is what is on the page.  It's not a Game FAQs walkthrough where you have 10 or 12 to search from and get to pick the one that has the best rating.

It is counterintuitive to tell readers: "Well, this is the only information we will give you on wells, but even though it is a lengthy article it is actually incorrect and utterly useless for you. Have a nice day."  (P.S.: I just picked wells as one item in the game, I have not read the wells' article in years (^_^;; )

I already responded to all of this, so I'm not going to again.

Secondly, I still don't see the necessity to attack the contributors when commenting on articles on the wiki. As you say yourself, the wiki needs the readers to contribute. And you certainly encourage contributors by showing them that if their article is not perfect by your standards, you will publicly denounce it as "lousy", "rotten", or whatever.

Who said anything about calling articles "rotten"? I never said anyone should be attacked or insulted. And if you honestly think that admitting an article has issues is an "attack" or anything that people should feel insulted by, then you have serious maturity issues regarding this kind of thing. We should not be unable to criticize articles just out of fear of hurting someone's feelings. We shouldn't be jerks about it either, but we should still be able to be honest about the quality of an article and whatever problems it might have. This is not preschool.

[Deathworks]

Hi!

I think we should let it rest then, and say we agree to disagree on this. It seems that we are starting to move in circles, and all the energy we are spending here could do more good editing the wiki (as I said, there are some things I should write, but simply never get around to write (^_^;; ).

Deathworks

[Vengeful Donut]

"Agree to disagree"?
Moving in circles happens when people don't focus on the issue. The current labels are defective. The reasons are visible.
People have for some reason compared them to the previous labels; this is completely irrelevant.
People have argued against having any labels at all. Also irrelevant.
Nobody has even tried to claim that this system doesn't have these defects. The only real argument has been about how much of an impact the defects have. Why would you object over something like this? Even if you don't think it's defective enough for you to take action, don't complain when someone else wants to. Some of us care about these defects and plan to fix them.


So here are some suggested alternatives. Even those of you who don't care about the flaws in the current labels are encouraged to criticize these and suggest more.

• Tattered | Fine | Masterwork
• Article | Good article | Featured article
• Bronze | Silver | Gold
• Lead | Iron | Platinum
• Stub | Article | Featured article
• 1 | 2 | 3

Note that while the bottom ranked terms for 2, 3, and 6 don't have a negative connotation, at least they don't have a positive one.

[Footkerchief]

• 1 | 2 | 3

Note that while the bottom ranked terms for 2, 3, and 6 don't have a negative connotation, at least they don't have a positive one.

Being a positive number, 1 will undoubtedly give false encouragement to writers of bad articles.  I propose -2 | -1 | 0 instead.

[Deathworks]

Hi!

As I said, I don't want to argue anymore on this.

However, personally, I like your second suggestion:

2. Article | Good article | Featured article

There are some additional thoughts I have:

1. How about adding a fourth marker for genuine "stubs"? I don't like the thought of placing something that does at least contain some information into the same category as a completely empty placeholder.

2. It is a bit sad that we don't have any in-game descriptor for average quality items. Putting aside the criticism about the positive connotations for a moment, the current system basically combined in-game terms with terms whose relative relationship was understandable correctly even for newbies. This is what made it very appealing - easy to understand while having something from inside the game.
But as there is no such descriptor, this thought is a dead end.

3. Metals are kind of problematic as metals are an integral part of the game and have a usefulness besides their trade value, which might make the system confusing.

4. Are 1,2,3 meaning 1 point, 2 points, 3 points, or are they first place, second place, third place?

Deathworks

[Draco18s]

And what's a "Featured Article"?  Featured where?  Why?  For what purpose?

[Graebeard]

The current labels are defective.

I disagree for the reasons I gave in my last post.  The quality labels are not defective because they convey the required information to the intended audience: editors.  I have difficulty imagining a new player, unfamiliar with the labels, being confused because they think "Fine" means the article is somehow better than "Exceptional" or "Masterwork".  Even if they were confused and didn't understand the label, they could just click on it for a description of the different labels.  Furthermore, the new players that do notice the quality labels are introduced to (or reminded of) the game concept "quality".

I really think Vengeful Donut and G-Flex are overstating the potential for confusion. The quality of each article is largely self evident.  When anyone sees articles like Tree and Biome side by side there's no question that the articles are of different quality.  I just don't think that anyone who reads the Biome article would want/need a reminder that the page sucks.

That said, I'm open to the possibility of replacing the existing quality modifiers if there's a consensus that the current system is misleading.  Here are my thoughts on VD's  suggestions.

• Tattered | Fine | Masterwork.  This is the best of these suggestions.  It importantly retains the reference to DF gameplay, but does not express any "positive" evaluation of the article content.  Has the disadvantage of expressing negativity, to the extent that expressing negativity is a disadvantage.
• Article | Good article | Featured article.  Who, exactly, is featuring articles?  Also, the rating "Article" doesn't serve to warn readers about the quality of the article as it expresses nothing about the quality.
• Bronze | Silver | Gold.  This is the second-best suggestion.  Has some relation to DF game play and the advantage of widely recognized and accepted ordinal ranking, but, again, seems to fall prey to the criticisms leveled at "fine" inasmuch as it seems like a system of awards, all of which have positive connotations.
• Lead | Iron | Platinum.  How do these metals correspond to quality?  Weight, real world value, in game utility, or what?  Would a DF newbie have any idea what they meant?.
• Stub | Article | Featured article.  Again, who exactly is featuring articles?  Additionally, I'd hate to see the DF wiki whitewashed of DF references to look like Wikipedia.  It's not Wikipedia, and we shouldn't want to turn it into Wikipedia.
• 1 | 2 | 3.  Is 1 the first best, or the lowest score?  Additionally, I fail to see how putting an unexplained string of numbers at the top of the page helps anyone.  The current system is at leas descriptive enough to indicate it's talking about quality.

[Footkerchief]

The quality labels are not defective because they convey the required information to the intended audience: editors.

People are not agreeing on the intended audience.  G-Flex wants warnings about the reliability aspect, for naive readers rather than editors.

It seems like the main questions now are 1) should the reliability warnings be separate from the grading, and if so, 2) should they use an implicitly numeric rating or non-numeric labels a la Wikipedia's "This article needs citations for verification"?

[Graebeard]

People are not agreeing on the intended audience.

I understand.  This is why I began my post with "I disagree".

Edit: fixed quote.

[Tarran]

I myself want articles to be intended on editors. Since, they are, you know, important to the entire existence of the wiki?

[G-Flex]

Like I said, though, there isn't as strong a dichotomy between users and editors as you seem to think, and you seem to want to encourage there to be one. A wiki survives by encouraging its users to become editors, and you do not do that by putting information on the wiki that only someone who's already an editor will understand or care about. These things need to be visible and comprehensible to users because that is the pool from which editors are drawn in the first place. We need to consider every user as a potential editor; that is how a wiki works, and how it survives.

[Graebeard]

Like I said, though, there isn't as strong a dichotomy between users and editors as you seem to think, and you seem to want to encourage there to be one.

I neither presume nor advocate a clear distinction between users and editors.  I'm not sure why you think I would.

I do, however, recognize the fact that editors will likely have some baseline understanding of game concepts, including the concept of quality.  If someone doesn't understand what quality means in DF I doubt they'd try to edit articles.

I largely agree with your statement regarding the desirability of turning users into editors, but I think it's more accurate to say that the purpose of the wiki is (1) to educate and inform new players of game mechanics and concepts, and (2) to consolidate game information from the forums and other sources for the use of all DF players.  Obviously, I think the primary purpose of the wiki is to serve new players.

The question, then, is how do we do that?  Questions regarding what form the quality labels should take should always start by asking what role they serve in furthering the greater purposes of the wiki.  I believe that quality labels have little direct relevance for new players and primarily (not exclusively, but primarily) serve the second purpose.

You say we need to warn new players about unreliable/incomplete information on the wiki.  I think the other mechanisms we have in place (D for Dwarf, disclaimer on the front page, discussion pages) sufficiently address this concern.  I also think the quality of the articles is self evident, even for new players.  I refer you to the examples in my prior post.

The only way I see quality labels being directly relevant to a new player, so new that they aren't familiar with DF's quality hierarchy, is if they see it, say "I wonder what that is", and click on it.  Of course, if they do that, they will not only clear up any confusion regarding the article's quality but also have a chance to learn about the game concept "quality". 

[Locriani]

Like I said, though, there isn't as strong a dichotomy between users and editors as you seem to think, and you seem to want to encourage there to be one.

I neither presume nor advocate a clear distinction between users and editors.  I'm not sure why you think I would.

I do, however, recognize the fact that editors will likely have some baseline understanding of game concepts, including the concept of quality.  If someone doesn't understand what quality means in DF I doubt they'd try to edit articles.

I largely agree with your statement regarding the desirability of turning users into editors, but I think it's more accurate to say that the purpose of the wiki is (1) to educate and inform new players of game mechanics and concepts, and (2) to consolidate game information from the forums and other sources for the use of all DF players.  Obviously, I think the primary purpose of the wiki is to serve new players.

The question, then, is how do we do that?  Questions regarding what form the quality labels should take should always start by asking what role they serve in furthering the greater purposes of the wiki.  I believe that quality labels have little direct relevance for new players and primarily (not exclusively, but primarily) serve the second purpose.

You say we need to warn new players about unreliable/incomplete information on the wiki.  I think the other mechanisms we have in place (D for Dwarf, disclaimer on the front page, discussion pages) sufficiently address this concern.  I also think the quality of the articles is self evident, even for new players.  I refer you to the examples in my prior post.

The only way I see quality labels being directly relevant to a new player, so new that they aren't familiar with DF's quality hierarchy, is if they see it, say "I wonder what that is", and click on it.  Of course, if they do that, they will not only clear up any confusion regarding the article's quality but also have a chance to learn about the game concept "quality". 

Except for the fact that over 70(!!) % of visitors to the wiki have NEVER played the game before.  That's approximately 35k visitors per day who have never played the game before.  (from traffic analysis, 91% of visitors have never visited the wiki before, 83% view one of the getting started tutorial pages for ~45 minutes or longer, and no other pages).