[Icehouse] Icehousegames.org Wiki Administration

[Melissa Parish]

Sorry to jump in, but I thought I'd put in my thoughts as a Wikipedia
administrator...

Collisions:  They do happen, but it's rare.  That's why there are section
breaks so you can just edit the section.  I have a zillion edits, and I've
only run into a handful of edit conflicts.

No one reads talk pages:  Not true on WP.  Talk pages are alive with tons of
discussion.  People are always responding on talk pages and it's a great way
to talk about the article while not messing up the article itself.

Too many places to check/watch:  Huh?  All discussion about an article
should be on that article's talk page.  That makes only 1 place to check.
However, if you mean across the whole wiki, then yes, there are a lot of
pages.  But, you don't necessarily have to get involved in all of them.

Higher-order things:  Perhaps you need a Project Page to deal with those
"higher-order things".  Things like [[IcehouseOrg:Categorization]] or
[[IcehouseOrg:Function Proposals]] or something.  WP's Village
Pump<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump>works kind of
like what you're talking about, so maybe that's what you need.

Admin Requests responses:  That's probably the admin's fault.  They should
be checking that all the time; as that's part of their job (I'm guessing
here, but it makes sense).

Back-and-forth conversation:  Ah.... I've had this discussion with Kristin,
and it's really too long to repost here.  Yes, wikis are not designed for
conversation, but that's part of the point.  It's a repository of
information, not a social site.  Also, I have found that back-and-forth
conversation works quite well.  If it's between 2 people, use your user talk
pages.  If it's between more people, a centralized discussion on an
article's talk page is better.

Anyway, I should stop now before I ramble any further about WP...

~ Melissa

On 4/13/07, David Artman <david at davidartman.com> wrote:
>
> >Should we perhaps set up a mailing list just for discussing the wiki?
>
> <snip>
>
> Exactly. Though the wiki has Talk pages, they are NOT very good for
> actual discussion (cross-posting collisions, no one reads them, too
> many places to check/watch). I suggest considering Talk as a sort of
> "Test" or "Drafts" page--to try out formatting or to pre-stage or
> pre-qualify content additions--and continue discussions here on the
> list, for higher-order things like, oh, categories and special page
> additions and functional proposals and admin-only tasks.
>
> As a particularly telling example, if the Admin Requests on the wiki
> EVER got any responses, I'd have never started this thread or asked to
> become an admin! So, if Admin Requests don't even get answered, how can
> we expect various comments, "posts", or random user suggestions on Talk
> pages to ever get any attention?
>
> David
>
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>
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