User talk:GreenReaper/Policy4

''This is an archive page, covering admin and policy issues discussed on my user talk page from 19 February to 5 April 2006. Please do not edit this page - if you wish to bring up a topic, copy the relevant portion into a new section on the current page. Thanks!'' --

Replies to GreenReaper
Hey, I don't know if the "feep" images can be used here (from the Fuzzball TinyMUCK pages). The only permission I got from Revar was to put all fuzzball documentation on any wiki I felt was useful. The Feeps aren't part of the documentation (they're more the "mascot" of Belfry Software) so I can't give any permission one way or the other. The best way to contact Revar is Revar@FurryMUCK. -- 02:05, 21 February 2006 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the advice! I'll see about asking Revar about it when I'm not falling over from sleep-deprivation. :-) -- 02:30, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Remaking history
I have a real issue, with people being able to edit history, his wishes aside, no one, should be able to hide their past, espcially when it is such a well known name, I think wiping his userpage is fine, if he wish it to be that, then so be it, however, he should not be able to remove links from within the wiki.. im on IRC and AIM Right now, IRC as AlohaWolf, and AIM as AlohaWulf, please shoot me a message


 * I did this and we had a chat about it. It's still not an entirely resolved question, and people have differeing opinions about it. -- 06:07, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

Entry deletion
I would appreciate it if you would please delete any mention of myself from your wiki site. I've hoped that non-involvement with that particular fandom would perhaps allow my mention of involvement with it, to evaporate over time. Yet I checked this morning and there is a detailed bio of said interaction, covering me from 1993 to the present.

-Tom Narey


 * I'm sorry that you feel that way. Part of furry fandom's history is the fact that people have decided to leave it, after all, and we like to record that so that people know the full story and don't wonder what happened to people. However, I can understand your view, and I shall exclude your entry in accordance with our relevant policy. Unless there are any objections from other contributors (which are unlikely given your current non-involvement), this should be all that is required. Should you change your mind at any point (or if you would prefer that the entry be there, but with details of your choosing), let me know. -- 22:25, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Entry deletion/edit
Please remove references to Silent Red's real name from the wiki. If this requires the entry to be removed entirely that is fine. This person has not been involved in the fandom for several years and will not return.


 * I have moved the entry to Silent Red, where it should probably have been anyway (we have a policy of preferring to listing under nicknames) and removed the redirect from the person's real name. I have added a note to the page specifying that it should not be re-added. -- 02:41, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

The [real name] Entry

 * The section was edited by me to remove the real name of the person concerned. -- 23:47, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

I am deeply ambarrassed to have to ask you to remove the [real name] entry from WikiFur. Though personally honored to have an entry and grateful to Ken Pick for originally placing it, certain individuals who sign my paycheck have taken great umbrage over my presence on the Internet.

Please contact me as to what steps I need to take in order to verify who I am and that I have the authority to make this request.

By the time you read this, I will have verified my Hotmail address.

Thank you for you patience and understanding about this situation I reluctantly find myself in.

Sincerely,

[real name]


 * Hi there! I'm sorry to hear that, but I can understand the situation given your class of your work. As you have previously made contributions to WikiFur I feel reasonably assured of your identity - no further verification will be reqired unless someone claims otherwise.


 * If you wish we can probably exclude your entry completely. It would be a shame to remove the details of your work in the community, though. Would it be acceptable to preserve the entry if all mentions of your name and current occupation were removed?


 * I have set this up at Heavy Horse so you can see how it would look, and changed all links mentioning your real name to your fan name. The only pages on which your real name currently appears are these talk pages, which can be edited out if desired. The page about you could also be put under your control if you wish, so that only you or an administrator could edit it directly.


 * If this will not suffice, let me know at my talk page, and I will exclude the entry completely. -- 21:31, 3 March 2006 (UTC)


 * That is an excellent suggestion! Please remove the [real name] section totally and keep Heavy Horse exaclty as you have written it. I will keep a watch over it to make sure it remains unconnected with my real name.


 * Thanks again for a very creative solution.


 * [real name]


 * No worries - I'm glad it solves the problem for you! We've actually had this situation come about a few times before, and this sort of solution usually solves it. I have removed your real name from this conversation - hopefully that should be sufficient to prevent it coming up in searches. If you wish to sign future chat, just type ~ and it will give your username with a link to your user page. -- 23:47, 3 March 2006 (UTC)


 * I've added a note to the article's talk page so that the details are not accidentally added again. :) Just to clarify and link back to this discussion easily. --Nidonocu - talk [[Image:Trans 168.png|16px|Nidonocu]] 01:34, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

A New Policy
There seems to be some confusion about our policies regarding vanity pages, "encyclopedic-ness", and what constitutes an acceptable article. I cobbled together a first pass at a policy, perhaps something that can be added to What Wikifur is not:

Vanity Articles

''Vanity articles, that is, articles about a person or project which are written by the article subject or someone involved with a project, are acceptable on WikiFur, unlike Wikipedia. In order for WikiFur to remain a useful resource for information, these articles must be factual and concise. Articles which are written for humor value or are lacking in reliable, documentable sources are likely to be edited for accuracy, or if the information is not documentable, deleted altogether.''

If you have humorous or non-factual information you would like to provide, provide a forum for commentary about yourself or your project, or wish to provide other non-encyclopedic information (within existing WikiFur policies and the boundaries of good taste), you are welcome to create a WikiFur account and post that in the User: namespace pages.

I will freely admit that this is written purely to address some of my own pet peeves :-) What do you think? Can this be improved? Am I off-base in my interpretation? --Duncan da Husky 15:36, 13 March 2006 (UTC)


 * I vote for this to be included in full. :) Sounds like a good addition and clarification. Can this be moved to some sort of public space for voting and discussion? --Nidonocu - talk [[Image:Trans 168.png|16px|Nidonocu]] 17:58, 13 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Since it is something that we do support, perhaps it should go on What WikiFur is instead, under "WikiFur is about furries and the furry fandom"? -- 20:00, 13 March 2006 (UTC)


 * That would work too. I figured it would fit under What Wikifur is not solely due to the existing mention of vanity pages under that heading, but either location would be fine by me. --Duncan da Husky 20:07, 13 March 2006 (UTC)


 * That works for me as well. -- Siege 02:23, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

Humor in entries
How forbidden is it? I couldn't resist: Mare (Poem) - Stallion (Poem) Chibiabos 22:25, 22 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Humour, in-jokes and the like aren't forbidden (see Adam's Mark), but I'd prefer it if those particular articles were be moved into in the User: namespace and linked from the page by or about you. If it were a part of a larger work then that might be a different story, but as it is now they're simply not really that relevant to the wider furry community and - let's face it - are unlikely to gain any such relevance. :-)


 * Though you didn't ask about it, the songs are less of a concern because they show their significance and relevance to others. Essentially, if it doesn't talk about any other people or link to other articles (except for dictionary definitions) then it's a sign that it's probably "personal" content that should be in the [[User: namespace, especially if there's no reason to believe it could be expanded further. -- 10:58, 26 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Oh, and we tend to avoid using capitals for parenthesised words unless they should be used normally to fit with the rest of the house style, so "(poem)" is preferred over "(Poem)". -- 11:04, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Qwika searches you / Permission to use the Wikifur logo
Hello

My name's Luke Metcalfe. Me and my colleagues launched a site last month called Qwika. It's a search engine designed specifically for wikis. We've recently added Wikifur to our index. Some example searches:

http://www.qwika.com /find/h-con http://www.qwika.com/find/Sanguine

We would like to make some interface improvements to our site such that our users can see a small edition of the logo for each WikiCity. We would like your permission to use this, and also a small version on the homepage, just as part of a list of wikis we cover.

If you have any questions or comments, I'd love to hear them.

Cheers

Luke Metcalfe http://www.rapint.com Phone / Fax: +612 8221 9721 (24 hrs)


 * I replied to this over AIM, giving permission for the logo to be used (and a few suggestions). -- 09:31, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

Main wiki links
Anyway, to my question to GreenReaper here (would still like my humor question above the muppet wiki discussion answered if you can, when convenient) is whether it is preferable to link to an already existing article on another wiki or to create a localized furry wiki version in addition to the link. Purely as an example, there is a lengthy one on zoophilia and a local article on zoophilia.

The question arises as I was looking to put together a biographical page on Timothy Albee when, googling his name to try and find a bio page for him, I discovered he already has a wiki entry on Wikipedia. Should I copy that locally and work off it, or change all the Timothy Albee links I find to point to the Wikipedia article, which would seem to be more logical (so various wikis, including furry wiki, can share the same article and thus all benefit as folk expand, expound and update that shared article)?  --Chibiabos 07:21, 26 March 2006 (UTC)


 * While I'm not GreenReaper, my opinion is that it is preferable to have both. Where the subject you wish to link or discuss is primarily furry-oriented, it would be better to have a more complete article on WikiFur, but of course, WikiFur is not meant to be a copy of Wikipedia, so by all means expand any incomplete articles that do get copied (and don't forget the attribution tag mentioned in the afore-linked policy, as it links to the original article). If there is a relevant article on Wikipedia or some other wiki or website, which could not be improved or made more relevant to the furry fandom by copying to WikiFur (or in the case of non-Wikipedia articles, would be a copyright violation to bring over), it is entirely appropriate to provide links to it and let others view the content in its original home.


 * What I would not want to see is a redirect to an external site. -- Siege 08:27, 26 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Timothy Albee is arguably very relevant to the furry community, but I actually think that's a good case for linking to the Wikipedia site instead and keeping that up to date ... is there a way to link back to wikifur from wikipedia in articles there?


 * I think if we could share back and forth like this, someone might stumble on something (like they were looking up Timothy Albee on wikipedia because of something else he'd done), and find links to wikifur and be able to find out stuff about the furry fandom that way. Hey, reading about it on wikipedia linked to wikifur beats basing their view of furrydom from Fur and Loathing, doesn't it?  --Chibiabos 09:24, 26 March 2006 (UTC)


 * My personal view is also that it is better to have two articles in this sort of situation. There is duplication, it is true, and the chance of redundancy, but it also makes it far easier to find links (many contributors will not know to look in Wikipedia) and it allows us to build up versions that are better than Wikipedia (due to internal linking) and then export them - something like Ursa Major Awards, only that didn't exist beforehand. You might think that people will add more interwiki links later but realistically I do not think this is likely to happen. It also means the article can be included in our categorization structure.


 * You can link to WikiFur from Wikipedia by adding the prefix a little concerned even then. However, in cases where a topic is never going to be suitable for a Wikipedia article it is probably defensible to link to good articles on a topic. Of course, if the article is that good it is likely to be on a topic that is covered in Wikipedia as well.


 * This obviously does not apply to all people, just those that are of particular relevance to the fandom and where it is likely that information will be added here that would not be added by Wikipedia editors (and yes, WikiFur editors might get there too, but they're less likely to edit a Wikipedia article, less likely to know how to link back here, etc.). This one appears to be a borderline case.


 * I guess the question is "is he actually in the furry fandom, or likely to be mentioned in several WikiFur articles?" If either of these are true then I would tend towards adding a local page and link to the Wikipedia article. If the WikiFur page had more information I would probably link back from Wikipedia to our article, either directly if the information was not appropriate for Wikipedia or by incorporating the material into the article and adding the  tag to the discussion for the article.


 * Sorry, I missed the other question, will reply. -- 10:46, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Wikifur's URL has changed ticker
The

WikiFur's URL has changed, don't forget to update your bookmarks!

thinger along the top of pages isn't grammatical. I'd suggest making it two sentences. (has changed. Don't forget) but a semi-colon instead of a comma would also work. -- Sine 18:34, 27 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Good call! Feel free to edit it yourself. Oh, and welcome to the admin team. :-) -- 18:47, 27 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Done. Thank you! I'm honored. Anything I should read through? Do I suddenly get to make SuperAdminPower statements about, oh, category order? ;) -- Sine 19:48, 27 March 2006 (UTC) (Echoed on my own talk page)


 * Probably the best resources are Wikipedia's pages on administrators and their administrators' how-to guide.


 * Administrative power on WikiFur is much more of a "techncial ability to do things" than a "right to dictate how things should be done". I gave it to you because you had a need to perform actions requiring admin powers, and because you seem to be someone with a history of good contributions who wouldn't go on a deletion spree or ban half the Internet by mistake. It doesn't grant more (or less) right to decide how pages, categories and the like should be organized - they're community decisions. You just have the ability to implement more of these decisions yourself.


 * Of course, if you decide to be bold and nobody says anything, all well and good. If someone disagrees with something you do, they'll contact you, and you should try to work together to figure out a way in which you can both be happy. -- 20:23, 27 March 2006 (UTC)


 * I don't get to ban half the internet? Or make rules from on high? Darn!
 * Thanks for the links. I'd found my way to one of them, but I'll give them both a good reading-through.
 * Regarding category order and suchlike very general questions--is there somewhere already in place to discuss broad topics? I recall seeing a lot getting worked out on individual talk pages. -- Sine 01:02, 28 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Other than the LiveJournal, not really. I should probably setup some kind of forum for that (I believe there's an extension added for that). Or we could just designate a talk page e.g. WikiFur talk:Community Central. -- 18:03, 28 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Ow.. my grammar. ;_; --Nidonocu - talk [[Image:Trans 168.png|16px|Nidonocu]] 23:10, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Categorization conundrums
As I've spammed a few places, I've been working on the Kaze pages a bit and a few things are starting to irritate my sides a bit. First, Kaze: Ghost Warrior is categorized as a movie. According to my information, the closest label that fits for it would actually be a series pilot episode (further snafu'd by the fact that, SFAIK, the series itself will be called 'Kaze: Ghost Warrior'. Its meant to be the first episode of the Kaze: Ghost Warrior (series) more than a standalone movie.  At 22 or 23 minutes long and CGI animated, it could also fit as an Category:Animations.  It is not a broadcast TV program (SFAIK, at least not yet), so that might not fit, either ... how would an unbroadcast animated series be categorized?


 * I'd put the series in animations, if it even gets an article of its own yet. It is dangerous to look too far into the future as it can lead to us recording things that never actually happen. As for the original work . . . well, that's a tricky one. Again, probably animations, and if people treat it as a movie (which I think they do) then it should probably be in there as well.

Also, is there a categorization for studios like Timothy Albee Animation, ReQuest Entertainment, Cashel Entertainment, etc.? Or woult it be better for those pages to be worked on in, say, Wikipedia?


 * We have Category:Organizations and subcategories. You should probably make your decision as to whether an article should exist here depending on whether or not the company actually does anything in relation to the furry fandom. For example, Dragon's Eye Productions gets one because it makes Furcadia, but Stardock wouldn't just because I work for them.

Also, could you answer my query, when you have time, I replied to you with in my talk?


 * Done.

And, egad, your talk page is getting ginormous. :p --Chibiabos 21:23, 27 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Yes . . . again! I'll be making another archive shortly. -- 23:57, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Yeesh
Sure, I checked to see if there was a Holland category, but I didn't check just Netherlands. Ah, well...

Oh, while I'm here: did you see my comment about inputboxes over at Help Desk? That seems a useful thing to implement, but I'm guessing it requires some sysop-level tinkering to make it available on WikiFur. --Duncan da Husky 16:23, 30 March 2006 (UTC)


 * I did see that, yes. Something to strongly consider (I think that given this and other comments, Community Central needs reworking again :-). It shouldn't require sysop tinkering, though . . . as long as it's installed, and I think it is for all Wikia, anyone can setup pages using it. -- 09:27, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Visibility of talk pages
I had been paying very little attention to the Namespace: dropdown at Recent changes, but having properly noticed it, I'm wondering if a prominent "Recent talk changes" might not be a useful thing--and easily done with a link to Recentchanges&namespace=1 -- Sine 22:14, 30 March 2006 (UTC)


 * That does indeed seem useful. That sort of thing could replace the permanently out-of-date "recent discussions" section in Community Central. -- 09:27, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Watts Martin's page
In regards to the Watts Martin page that I previously edited -- I spoke with Watts and, although they are in effect the same person as [name deleted], they don't want to be directly linked together because the creator/player is working in a field which is likely to do Google searches and the like. So they just don't want the character/player linked together, although having both entires separate is apparently okay. Just FYI. ~Puc


 * Hehe, yep - I'd figured as much given the anonymous edit . . . and, umm, you know Google indexes WikiFur, right? Way to make a new page linking them. :-) *edits* -- 05:56, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

Query about User Talk:Invader Pichu
Now here's an interesting question: we have a user who has vandalized in the past removing a Blocked User template on their talk page. On the one hand, I can see that the user is clearly no longer blocked. On the other hand, I can see value in leaving some template that a user has been blocked in the past for vandalizing, if only to help admins judge how severely to penalize repeat vandals.

I gather that you have spoken with this person off-wiki; what do you think should be the proper way to address this? Do we need a new template, perhaps? ("This user has been blocked in the past for {X amount of time} for vandalizing articles X, Y, and Z")

I have reverted the template removal for now, but I'm open to ideas as to whether it should be left on or removed.--Duncan da Husky 12:25, 4 April 2006 (UTC)


 * When I check to see if someone is a repeat vandal, I generally take a look at that user's contributions page, since it's not subject to being maliciously edited. :-) If I see rashes of vandalism seperated by a marcoscopic length of time, then I know they've been banned and I'll make the next ban longer.  --Dmuth 14:21, 4 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Hmm. I talked to them, but I did not look at their user's contributions, only their IP (which is what they were complaining about). I think that some less-incorrect template should be specified after banning, or perhaps that ones in regular use should be modified to specify the length of the ban (in fact, I don't really like the wording of the banning templates right now -- they're not likely to convincce someone to go away, just make them angrier).


 * We do need to forgive and forget - to an extent. Six months seems like a reasonable time to give people a second chance. A few bad edits at the start should not preclude you from contributing or be left sticking out forever (they do if people care to look, anyway). But yes, if bad faith edits to articles continue, do not hesitate to ban for longer periods. -- 14:45, 4 April 2006 (UTC)