Talk:Zampacon

Thanks for the help with the wording and the wiki format, Higgs, I'm not a native english speaker and I'm trying my best, I'm just putting in some info to make the pages more accurate and complete :)

I'm not an expert Wikipedian/Wikifur-ian but I tend to disagree with the latest version of the page, modified by Spirou. Some informations, while surely not crucial, have been removed from the description of the event, making it less accurate and documented. Also, the request for citations and references for such a small event seems exaggerate, since 99% of the info can only be found on the official forum, which was strangely removed from sources. As you can see I'm one of the organizers so I can assure you this is the most we can provide for the Wikifur page. There are larger cons/furmeets with Wiki pages far less accurate and referenced than Zampacon and I think we could be content with what we can arrange :) I'll try to clarify where stated and keep Spirou's layout, while trying to keep the original content, as well as the sources. ~Valion


 * I agree that the edit summary used should have been better - "wikify" should be used in summaries strictly for syntax changes (e.g. italicisation, list formatting), not to "explain" content changes. I imagine the website links were removed as they duplicate the link in the infobox; if your intent was to use it as a reference, individual posts should be linked, rather than the site as a whole, preferably using the standard system of inline citations. Personally I am concerned with what looks like statements of opinion: e.g. "a careful decision", "Sadly...", and "positive feedback[s]" (examples?). The section about it being the biggest gathering of Italian furs seems overwrought, too; the comparison with Eurofurence may be reasonable (but should be backed up by a reference if possible); talk of other websites is getting off-topic. Another minor issue; you changed back details of the hotel to present tense, but since it was under the heading for a prior year, it was correct to change it to past tense and to number the event as "Zampacon 2012". If the location is likely to be the same in future years, then I suggest lifting that section out of the Zampacon 2012 section. --GreenReaper(talk) 21:29, 1 May 2013 (EDT)

Edits and why
Wikify (Medium) Revert to format used by most Wikifur con articles -"Background" section (POV statement, not historical data) +fact tags (just a direct link to the forum is not a ref link) +Grammar/spell check +ext links (Due Torri) +ref tag -Cleanup tag.

The edits/format conforms to one used by most Con articles in Wikifur. In this case, the Califur page was used as a working template. Some information was deleted (e.g. background) for being POV, and some paragraphs were reworded for clarity, English grammar, spelling, redundancy. Time tense words (is) were changed for present to past ones, as the convention had already occurred. Convention template added. References tags were added to the most notable parts, as it would be done with any other Con article, and just adding the website link next to it is not helpful to readers (they shouldn't dig into a forum looking for that passage/post, and that's why it was removed in lieu for the tags). Seem to many?. well, it's a small article so far, so it would seem it was tagged to Death not the case. Not the case. The time tag was added due to the way the Zampacon 2013 section was written. Sections: Unless the event is announced as Zampacon '12, full date should be displayed (2012).

Clarify tags were added specifically to the area where the event took place (vague), and what some of the staff's statements meant (i.e. the organizers agreed that such a limit was a careful decision for a first convention.). The External list has being removed again, as it's already listed inside the Convention infobox (Twitter, Facebook, IRC channels, other supporting external sites not inside the website should/will go here).

"There are larger cons/furmeets with Wiki pages far less accurate and referenced than Zampacon and I think we could be content with what we can arrange". If so, those articles will be tagged for reference too in the future. It the mean time this one was because it was being worked on last night. And additional Wikipedia and internal links were added to provide more useful data for readers.

If you find in the future that my, or any other editor, edits may be wrong, please do contact them on their talk pages, or the article's one. Don't just deformat the whole thing. The article was not targeted maliciously, just edited. Hope this explanation helps - Spirou 23:10, 1 May 2013 (EDT)

Working on a compromise
I'll start by thanking GreenReaper for his support and I agree with his review. I'll also be careful to remove any statements of opinion which slipped off as I wrote the article. I also will try to be more careful with the correct verb tense and whatnot, as I said, english is not my native language and I'm doing my best. Tho I have to disagree about the judgement on the "background" for the convention. It might seem out of topic or overwrought, but in my opinion it provides helpful information to the reader, who, especially if accostumed to the U.S. convention attendance rates, might overlook at this event and be unaware of the context surrounding conventions in Italy, which is not stated anywhere. So, forgive my lack of strictness on the whole "being on topic", but we should not forget that our final objective is to give the reader an accurate and comprehensive view on the subject, which includes its context. Other con pages as Furnal Equinox and Abando do cite their background as a part of their format. Of course I can try to provide as many reference as I can to support the numbers I am quoting, like Eurofurence newspaper which reported the extact numbers of attendees by nationality. If that is alright for you I can rewrite that section providing references for the data.

As for what Spirou wrote, I have to disagree. The page was indeed tagged to death, for such a small article on a fandom-based wiki. As I already already stated, I am not an experienced wikipedian, nor I do posses the time and the desire to become an expert, so I am basically gonna follow your lead for whatever needs to be done about "wikifying" the article as long as it involves moving text, changing the chapters or providing references. But when it comes to content changes, I'd like to say that I'm not thrilled about having to employ a great deal of my time to try to achieve some abstract and impossible standard of documentation and verifiability. It's not like I'm writing an article on a president, sources are bound to be limited if not unique and in a language that most people wouldn't understand anyway, and that's why I avoided to provide references to the single discussions on the forum. If you think it's necessary I can of course provide such links, but you'd have to trust my judgement on that, so we'd be back on square one :)

I don't want to sound hostile of course and I really do appreciate your time and efforts in making this article better, I even clarifyied the points where you asked me to, kept your format, and of course, the grammatical corrections. I don't feel the extrenal links as redundant with the Infobox, tho they contain the same link, they do stand out a little more and provide a quick spot to click for any visitor. Infobox is meant to be a summary, not a replacement to what is contained in the article, but I'll wait for your reply before setting it back. Also I didn't just deformat the whole think without warning, I did write my motives on this talk page. Tho I think it's a waste of both my and your time if we focused this much on a small article like this, when you could help the readers much more by wikifying some of the other con's articles, most of which have a different text formatting and layout, while I wouldn't waste my time having to work so hard on this small article while I simply meant to bring informations where noone did and help this wiki project to be up-to-date and accurate. I'll now try to respect your suggestions on the changes, and once again provide helpful and, this time, referenced (still to the italian forum topics) informations about this little event. If anything need to be referenced or clarifyied please just state it in the text and I'll try, when possible, to provide support, but don't just remove content, as I have to take a lot of my time to compare the two versions and find out what is missing.

I apologize for my lengthy reply, but I'm just trying to "put you in my shoes", so to speak, and understand the efforts of someone who is not an expert on wiki project but still wants to contribute without taking this too seriously, which for a fandom-based wiki is completely out of context. If I found out that my efforts in keeping this article detailed, up-to-date and as "wikifyied" as I can are still made useless for such reasons, then I'd just lose my interest in contributing, sorry :)

I hope we can find a common ground, best regards, Valion.

PS If you did corrected the page to conform with style and standards, usage of time tags and grammar, why is it still tagged as lacking them? XP