WikiFur talk:About

Would an admin please add Statistics Record to the list of statistics, and maybe add another entry to the archive? Almafeta 15:44, 31 Aug 2005 (UTC)
 * Added Record page to the list of links here. What do you mean exactly though by archive? --Nidonocu - talk [[Image:Trans 168.png|16px|Nidonocu]] 18:05, 31 Aug 2005 (UTC)

Rendering issues
I'm using Firefox 2.0.0.4 on a WIndows XP box and this articlae is rendering as a complete hash for me - graphics over text, text boxes in the wrong place, etc. Is anyone else seeing this problem?DuncanDaHusky(talk) 13:10, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Looks perfectly fine in IE 7 and a recent trunk build of Firefox on Vista . . . I'll check at the office. --GreenReaper(talk) 14:44, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Corrections
So, from recent Naga discussion on the talk page and IRC I learned that WikiFur's intent, stated mission and handling are three different things. I never wanted to act against WikiFur mission or try to change it, I only acted in according to the description and rules! I've read them very carefully. I think it goes without saying that the mission and the explanation of the mission shouldn't be different... So, I propose some corrections. EvilCat 06:58, 12 October 2011 (EDT)

Intent, usage and handling
The intent described to me by GreenReaper was:
 * Furry-related information is often not notable enough for Wikipedia and other encyclopedias. WikiFur is the place for furry information that can't be put to other encyclopedias, otherwise it would be splitting the effort. (Citing by memory! I don't have IRC log at hand - feel free correct me.)

Present mission statement is:
 * WikiFur is a cooperative attempt to record information of use to the furry community. (...) If it's related in any way to furry community or culture, chances are it's worth mentioning on WikiFur. (...) As a generalization of the above, you should not be concerned if what you write is only of interest to a small group of people.

Also, not mentioned by the description is a tradition to keep only established furry information, to filter out minor or local trends and so that WikiFur wouldn't be accessory of forcing new memes. So, basically WikiFur is fanon/vanity furry wiki. (Fanon is something widely accepted by fans, but not actually present in official universe; first part is true for WikiFur handling traditions.)

I also want to note a recommendation that a information-rich general article is better than a series of microstubs. Close to it was a suggestion that if the context of Naga is not furry-specific (i.e. is shared with other cultures), then this article would rather be "List of naga characters in popular culture", or distributed between articles on works that mention nagas, to be found via search, or deleted, as there already is a comprehensive list of snake people appearances compiled at TvTropes.

As a result of mission statement (I think), present WikiFur is different than intended to be. It contains lots of articles on animal species, sometimes linked by many other articles and expanded by many users. Still, furry-specific information in them is mostly one or two sentences about popularity and related yiff genres. WikiFur also has articles on works shared by other cultures and described in detail in other sources. Some of them are said to be "part of furry history" (still, aren't they described better in other places?), others just are. Being part of furry history is only rarely explained in the article. EvilCat 06:58, 12 October 2011 (EDT)

Corrections
The corrections I propose have the goal of bringing description and usage in line with intent. It would be much easier for both contributors and maintainers!

EvilCat 06:58, 12 October 2011 (EDT)
 * 1) Fix the mission statement to accurately express intent. GreenReaper suggested a few short corrections that made things so much more clear.
 * 2) Create a guideline page that describe what other sources, such as Wikipedia and fan-wikis, can be used to store furry-related information that is shared with other cultures. The guideline should also explain special requirements of these sources, such as referencing in Wikipedia.
 * 3) Articles on topics shared by other cultures should be cleaned up: non furry-specific information, such as animal's habits and general archetype, anthropomorphic story's plot, should be moved to other sources. If only 1 or 2 sentences is left in the article, they should be moved to a general article like List of most popular phenotypes and yiff genres articles.
 * 4) As articles were probably linked to and deemed useful, readers should be able to access all information that was there. So, External links secion, soft redirect or a disambiguation page should link to all places where the information is now stored. There also should be an encouragement to add furry-specific information (not shared by other cultures).
 * 5) One of maintainers' suggested responsibilities should be managing contributions of information shared by other cultures: putting it to other sources, looking for new reliable encyclopedias for non furry-specific information that has yet no place other than WikiFur, adding these new encyclopedias to the guideline.

Discussion
Does this sound good? EvilCat 06:58, 12 October 2011 (EDT)

There is one more reason to keep rather than delete articles on non furry-specific topics beside that people are expecting them (as seen by the number of links). Other languages of WikiFur use English articles as pivot for interwikis. English is an international language, but Russian, Spanish, Chinese are not universally known. For example, if not for Lion (species) article I wouldn't know what interwikis to place in Russian lion article. Even if I looked up "lion" in dictionaries, I'd have to check languages of all WikiFur versions and then check if the article are present in respective WikiFurs, and I could still be wrong, not knowing other languages semantics. (Though there might be some other solution for that problem.) EvilCat 10:04, 14 October 2011 (EDT)

Anyone? EvilCat 04:31, 17 October 2011 (EDT)


 * This needs to be more open to discussion of curators and editors, as it stands as a proposal so far. If Greenreaper has already weight in the main body of it, it should more or less the law of the Wiki, but has stated before, more input from other users would be helpful. And no, I'm not forcibly against the insertion of such non-100% furry articles such as Naga. It's just based on a long discussion years ago that such articles were not 100% furry lore. Just repeating the points from back when, but that is now a moot point. Not trying to start an argument - Spirou 05:58, 24 October 2011 (EDT)

I ask to clarify WikiFur policies on appropriate content. I reviewed some recent deletion discussions. There are statements like "can be recreated if furry characters of this species will appear", "no links to this article", "no furry content"... But articles about species that are widely used as fursonas, and articles linked to by other articles are being proposed for deletion as well. As for furry content, is seems that only fursonas, and webcomics created by furries count - even though Wikipedia doesn't allow "In popular culture" lists and, of course, anthro characters lists which would be useful to furries. In this light, I wouldn't know which articles are ok to create except about furries themselves (regardless of "notability") and furry events. EvilCat 05:03, 4 July 2012 (EDT)