WikiFur - User contributions [en]

User talk:Axel

2006-04-04T03:53:37Z

Axel: Talk to me!

I think you can just edit this page, that's what I'm banking on, so if you can, then great. Go ahead. Right now. ...Or else. Um, if you can't, then you're SOL, and I guess I am too. Damn.

== --------------------------Edit / add below this, please ------------------------- ==

High Tail Hall

2006-04-01T16:56:32Z

Axel:

[[Image:HighTailHall.png|right|thumb|350px|Initial scene of the bar at High Tail Hall]]
'''High Tail Hall''' (or '''HTH''' for short) is an adult flash animation created by the animation studio [[Pendragon Entertainment]]. In it, the player's [[character]] could explore the setting of High Tail Hall, which was basically a modern bar/dance club. In his explorations (and the player was a he) he could talk to and (with the ease typical of various adult flash games) seduce or be seduced by the characters in the hall. The current version is 1.5.

The 'available' characters included a [[cheetah]], a [[fox]], and a [[zebra]], two of whom were female and one of whom looked female at first sight. (the fox mentioned is owned by his player, [[Luca Shoal]]. [[Pendragon Entertainment]] holds the rights to the remaining characters.)

High Tail Hall had private rooms upstairs, a dance floor and bar on the middle floor, and various business functions downstairs off the ground floor.

== Controversy ==

Early versions of High Tail Hall included an uncredited clip of [[Wikipedia:Depeche Mode|Depeche Mode]]'s song "Personal Jesus." This clip was removed from 1.2 on.

Some people believe that High Tail Hall was inspired by [[The Tail Underground]], or vice versa. In fact, both [[Ian R. Soulfox]] and Pendragon Entertainment created their animations independently and unaware of the other's work.

== High Tail Hall 2.0 ==

The author of High Tail Hall had been accepting [[commission]]s for High Tail Hall 2.0, where a person's character would appear in the new version, apparently with improved music. However, as with so many things, reality intervened.

A fire broke out in the Pendragon Entertainment studio, destroying the computer with all the commissions on it, killing the studio's cat, and causing thousands of dollars worth of damage to the building. All Pendragon Entertainment projects were suspended, but full refund was given to everyone who comissioned a character.

Recently, after things have been taken care of, work has been restarted on High Tail Hall 2.0 and it has been announced that it should be completed some time in 2006. It will compose of a new engine with new and old characters, as well as music; however, the plans for voices and voice acting has been put on hold, but may be integrated post-release. Unused features or sneak-peeks of planned features might be released before the complete version, such as a demo. The project is still a free endeavor, with any payments related to it being a tip jar located in-game.

== High Tail Hall: Twilight Cavern ==

A spinoff of the original High Tail Hall is being made by a fan, going by the name Jack Salem, consisting of new and old characters and locations. It has been announced that there will be approximately 12 female characters and 6 different places to explore, as well as an in-depth plot. As far as male characters, only one has been announced, and recently it was also announced that this version of the game is focused around heterosexual relations. There will be music, mostly jazz tracks, written by Jack himself. This project was announced in 2006, with the only releases so far being images of characters.

Upon the creator of Twilight Cavern hearing that the original High Tail Hall has come back into creation, the Twilight Cavern project has been announced to be a separate endeavor. Jack has stated that Twilight Cavern will be made, but it will no longer have any ties to High Tail Hall, save for any appearing special characters, such as [[Luca Shoal]].

== External links ==
[[Image:Censor NC17 button.png|right]]
* [http://www.hightailhall.net High Tail Hall] - suspended by its web provider, Fortunecity
* [http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/182224 High Tail Hall mirror at NewGrounds] (still active, despite the "File Deleted" note)

[[Category:Animations]][[Category:Mature websites]]

High Tail Hall

2006-04-01T16:41:37Z

Axel: /* High Tail Hall: Twilight Cavern */

[[Image:HighTailHall.png|right|thumb|350px|Initial scene of the bar at High Tail Hall]]
'''High Tail Hall''' (or '''HTH''' for short) is an adult flash animation created by the animation studio [[Pendragon Entertainment]]. In it, the player's [[character]] could explore the setting of High Tail Hall, which was basically a modern bar/dance club. In his explorations (and the player was a he) he could talk to and (with the ease typical of various adult flash games) seduce or be seduced by the characters in the hall. The current version is 1.5.

The 'available' characters included a [[cheetah]], a [[fox]], and a [[zebra]], two of whom were female and one of whom looked female at first sight. (the fox mentioned is owned by his player, [[Luca Shoal]]. [[Pendragon Entertainment]] holds the rights to the remaining characters.)

High Tail Hall had private rooms upstairs, a dance floor and bar on the middle floor, and various business functions downstairs off the ground floor.

== Controversy ==

Early versions of High Tail Hall included an uncredited clip of [[Wikipedia:Depeche Mode|Depeche Mode]]'s song "Personal Jesus." This clip was removed from 1.2 on.

Some people believe that High Tail Hall was inspired by [[The Tail Underground]], or vice versa. In fact, both [[Ian R. Soulfox]] and Pendragon Entertainment created their animations independently and unaware of the other's work.

== High Tail Hall 2.0 ==

The author of High Tail Hall had been accepting [[commission]]s for High Tail Hall 2.0, where a person's character would appear in the new version, apparently with improved music. However, as with so many things, reality intervened.

A fire broke out in the Pendragon Entertainment studio, destroying the computer with all the commissions on it, killing the studio's cat, and causing thousands of dollars worth of damage to the building. All Pendragon Entertainment projects were suspended, but full refund was given to everyone who comissioned a character.

Recently, after things have been taken care of, work has been restarted on High Tail Hall 2.0 and it has been announced that it should be completed some time in 2006. It will compose of a new engine with new and old characters, as well as music; however, the plans for voices and voice acting has been put on hold, but may be integrated post-release. Unused features or sneak-peeks of planned features might be released before the complete version, such as a demo. The project is still a free endeavor, with any payments related to it being a tip jar located in-game.

== High Tail Hall: Twilight Cavern ==

A spinoff of the original High Tail Hall is being made by a fan, going by the name Jack Salem, consisting of new and old characters and locations. It has been announced that there will be approximately 12 female characters and 6 different places to explore, as well as an in-depth plot. As far as male characters, only one has been announced, and recently it was also announced that this version of the game is focused around heterosexual relations. There will be music, mostly jazz tracks, written by Jack himself. This project was announced in 2006, with the only releases so far being images of characters.

Upon the creator of Twilight Cavern hearing that the original High Tail Hall has come back into creation, the Twilight Cavern project has been announced to be a separate endeavor. Jack has stated that Twilight Cavern will be made, but it will no longer have any ties to High Tail Hall, save for any appearing special characters, such as Luca Shoal.

== External links ==
[[Image:Censor NC17 button.png|right]]
* [http://www.hightailhall.net High Tail Hall] - suspended by its web provider, Fortunecity
* [http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/182224 High Tail Hall mirror at NewGrounds] (still active, despite the "File Deleted" note)

[[Category:Animations]][[Category:Mature websites]]

User:Axel

2006-04-01T16:34:26Z

Axel:

Alright, so I guess this page is going to tell something about myself, eh?

Well...I've just stumbled onto this place, but I figured if I was going to contribute, then making an account wouldn't hurt.

I'll place more information here as relevance arises.

User talk:GreenReaper

2006-04-01T16:25:10Z

Axel: /* Hi there! */

{{User talk:GreenReaper/Header}}

== Hello! ==

Yea, I noticed. I had to go to the sand box to make a new red link. I did however just finish a new article. [[Chainroaker]]. Thanks for the greeting! I've lurked this wiki for quite some time and thought I might just as well get myself an account. :)

/Spocha

:Actually, if you change the link at the top of the page to "<nowiki>http://furry.wikicities.com/wiki/</nowiki>'''Your_desired_term'''", you're presented a blank page, and can click the appropriate links from there to create the new article. -- [[User:Siege|Siege]] 21:56, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

== Upcoming hiatus ==

Just letting you know, I'm moving to another city on or around the 24th of this month, most likely New Orleans. Because of this, I won't be available regularly for a while after this week. -- [[User:Siege|Siege]] 22:10, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

:Don't worry about it - people come and go (and ''usually'' come back again :-) all the time. Good luck with the move - I hope you have great fortune in the Big Easy, or wherever you end up. :-) --{{UT|GreenReaper}} 00:01, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

== 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. --{{UT|Aerowolf}} 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. :-) --{{UT|GreenReaper}} 02:30, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

-= By Cesarin =-
Hey there GreenReaper, not sure where I can post or ask this, wondering if you can review my own wiki at [[Cesarin]], since I'm from Mexico and I'm still not 100% sure about some grammar values & writting rules.
so I ask for your help to see if you can review and fix my errors :>

== 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.'' --{{UT|GreenReaper}} 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 [[WikiFur:Personal information|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. --{{UT|GreenReaper}} 22:25, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

== Furnation Worlds vandalism ==

Ahoy there, just wanted to let you know that [[FurNation Worlds]] was vandalized a few minutes ago by an IP-only troll. I reverted the page to an earlier edit, I just wanted you to know so you'll hopefully ban that IP from editing. Thanks. [[User:Kitsune Sniper|Kitsune Sniper]] 22:29, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

:Thanks for taking the time to spot and revert it! :-) --{{UT|GreenReaper}} 23:09, 27 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. --{{UT|GreenReaper}} 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.'' --{{UT|GreenReaper}} 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. --{{UT|GreenReaper}} 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 <nowiki>~~~~</nowiki> and it will give your username with a link to your user page. --{{UT|GreenReaper}} 23:47, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

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

== Welcome ==

Hi there, Aaaamory, and welcome to WikiFur! Thanks for your contribution to the article about your comic. [[User talk:GreenReaper|Let me know]] if you need any [[help]] not already provided. :-) --{{UT|GreenReaper}} 07:03, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
:Hi GreenReaper. Thanks for the welcome. I'm still new. Whee this is fun! [[User:Aaaamory|Aaaamory]] 22:16, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

== とらんすふあ ==
Shouldn't that be トランスフア?

:''Result of IRC discussion: Apparently not, as it is a Japanese word and not a foreign one (so is in [[Wikipedia:hiragana|hiragana]] and not [[Wikipedia:katakana|katakana]]).'' --{{UT|GreenReaper}} 07:39, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

== Hey Green ==

I noticed your note to me. I am still really green to this so to speak (heheh) can you let me know how to move it to person; people category?
thanks, anjel

:To put your page in the People category, you put <nowiki>[[Category:People]]</nowiki> at the bottom of it - have a look at other people's pages to see how it works. Also, to sign your name easily at the end of talk page edits, just put <nowiki>~~~~</nowiki> which will turn into your name and the date. Make sure you're logged in first! :-) --{{UT|GreenReaper}} 03:56, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

== Heya ==

Hi, thanks for commenting on my entry.
I really have no idea what I'm doing... I thought I was making a general pedia entry, but guess not. How do I make an entry?

:You're welcome! And don't worry, you're doing the right thing by trying things out. *grins*

:You were editing on your user page - the bit where by convention you "talk" to people on a personal basis. This is usually used to talk about your wiki work and plans for the future, or whatever - but either way, it's ''from'' you (in the first person), not ''about'' you (in the third person). It's pretty much exactly the same in terms of editing, but the content is different by convention - compare [[User:GreenReaper]] and [[GreenReaper]] to see what I mean. It means that people can edit the pages about other people without feeling that they are editing personal words - because that is what the User: page is for.

:You can turn it into a entry in the main namespace very easily - click the Move tab at the top while on [[User:Growly]] and select to move it to just Growly. Untick the checkbox offered for moving talk pages, otherwise it will copy this text as well (normally you want it to when moving pages, but not in this case).

:To link the two pages, you can use the <nowiki>{{Contributor}} and (optionately) {{ContributorU}}</nowiki> tags. You can see the first one in use on the GreenReaper page above. Oh, and another tip - if you type <nowiki>~~~~</nowiki> then it will turn into a signature that you can use on Talk: pages, like this: --{{UT|GreenReaper}} 01:13, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

::To clarify: You'd put <nowiki>{{Contributor|Growly}}</nowiki> to get the right result. And let's pretend I didn't just make up the word "optionately" in the above sentence. ;-) --{{UT|GreenReaper}} 01:21, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

== [[BritFur]] ==

I can inform you with 100% confidence that there is no such thing as a BritFur convention. The site was set up by a Tippus Tailus with the thought that if he announces when and where before even booking or consulting anyone, it'd happen. As such, it is not happening and the site itself is quite simply full of lies.

Therefore, I reccomend the "BritFur" link be removed from upcoming events as it is most certainly not happening!

:Thanks for the info - I've removed it from the events calendar. I joined NorthernFurs today so I'll have a look this evening and see if I can find some references on it. --{{UT|GreenReaper}} 20:06, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

::If you're on about joining IRC channels, I hang out in #UK on Furnet --[[User:SlyCat|SlyCat]] 20:54, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

:::Interestingly, since he is [http://www.britfur.co.uk/2006/guest/index.html mentioned on their web pages], I asked [[Kagemushi|Kage]] what he had heard about Britfur. He said that he was contacted by one of the organizers offering to have him as a [[Guest of Honor]] about two years ago, then received a phone call a few weeks later stating that they wished to reconsider the offer due to the expense. That was the last he had heard from them. --[[User:DuncanDaHusky|Duncan da Husky]] 15:40, 13 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 [[Wikifur: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? --[[User:DuncanDaHusky|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? --[[User:Nidonocu|Nidonocu]] - [[User talk: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 [[WikiFur:What WikiFur is]] instead, under "WikiFur is about furries and the furry fandom"? --{{UT|GreenReaper}} 20:00, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

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

::That works for me as well. -- [[User:Siege|Siege]] 02:23, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

== RE: ==

all good, and thank you^^

this is the first time iv used a wiki for other then looking up stuff.
i hope to add more stuff on whatever i see intrest in

awsome things these wikis are^^
a bit confussing for a noob, but ill get the hang of it alls --[[User:FishyBoner|FishyBoner]]

Thanks for the msg ^_^
--[[User:HelenBaby|HelenBaby]]

== "User" vs "normal" pages ==

I'm afraid I'm still too wiki-newb to understand the difference. What is supposed to go on a 'normal' vs. 'user' page, such as my own (Chibiabos vs. User:Chibiabos)? I've been doing my user page to talk about all my projects and characters and things, and the 'normal' (non-user) Chibiabos page to just talk about the Chibiabos character as it appeared in my MUSH I ran a few years back. --[[User:Chibiabos|Chibiabos]] 21:17, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

:I should probably have taken the opportunity to explain after my earlier edits. :-) Our current convention is to use the page in the main namespace for both the person ''and'' their character, if under the same name. This is partially due to the integration of many people's characters with their personality, but also because by convention a User: page is a personal message ''from'' a user (first-person), while the other page is ''about'' the person (third-person). Compare [[GreenReaper]] and [[User:GreenReaper]]. This distinction is considered more important than that between a player and their [[fursona]]. Moreover, most of the time people will be referring to people not their characters, and it gets annoying to remember to type User: all over the place - normal articles should link to other normal articles.

:This policy makes a bit more sense on Wikipedia, where most users will not have pages about themselves because they are non-notable individuals (under their definition). However, it seems to work OK here, and it helps separate the personal message on the User page (which is controlled by you) from the description of yourself (which others should feel free to edit). Hope that clears things up for you! --{{UT|GreenReaper}} 00:33, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

::Another thing to note: An awful lot of people that we write about do not ''have'' accounts under their names, and so we might well write about someone and find that their account was owned by another (or that they'd used a different account name). Again, this relates to the difference between the idea of a person and the user that is editing the wiki that just happens to be that person as well. --{{UT|GreenReaper}} 00:37, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

== Heya, ==

== Heya, ==

Thanks for the advice, I'll re-upload some of those illos tomarow (it's late)

== Humor in entries ==

How forbidden is it? I couldn't resist: [[Mare (Poem)]] - [[Stallion (Poem)]] [[User:Chibiabos|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 [[User:Chibiabos|by]] or [[Chibiabos|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 <nowiki>[[User:</nowiki> namespace, especially if there's no reason to believe it could be expanded further. --{{UT|GreenReaper}} 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 [[Help:Furry Book of Style|house style]], so "(poem)" is preferred over "(Poem)". --{{UT|GreenReaper}} 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)
ICQ MSN Skype Y!: orchycore

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

== Muppet Wiki ==

Hi, Laurence -- I just wanted to follow up on our conversation on [http://muppet.wikicities.com/wiki/Main_Page Muppet Wiki]. I think you were left with the wrong impression about us, and I wouldn't want you to pass your misapprehension on to other people at Wikicities.

On [http://muppet.wikicities.com/wiki/User_talk:Toughpigs my talk page], you said:

:''That is also the root with my disagreement with your blocking policy - I think that it turns a certain proportion of people away unnecessarily and makes the place less successful than it could otherwise be. I may be wrong, but I look at the other wikis that succeed while allowing people to continue editing anonymously and I find it hard to believe.''

You seem to think that Muppet Wiki isn't as successful as other wikis here, and actually it's the other way around. We're currently the #2 most successful Wikicity, with [http://starwars.wikicities.com/wiki/Main_Page Star Wars] at #1. After four months, Muppet Wiki has over 7600 articles, with 50 active contributors and over 500 edits a day.

By way of comparison, [http://creatures.wikicities.com/wiki/Creatures_Wiki_Homepage Creatures Wiki] has 2400 pages, and gets about 30 edits a day. [[Main Page|WikiFur]] has 3200 pages, and about 150 edits a day. [http://tardis.wikicities.com/wiki/Main_Page Doctor Who] has five active users, [http://mac.wikicities.com/wiki/Main_Page Mac] has two, [http://doom.wikicities.com/wiki/Entryway Doom] has about ten, and [http://genealogy.wikicities.com/wiki/Main_Page Genealogy] doesn't seem to have any. The current Featured Wiki, [http://radiocontrol.wikicities.com/wiki/Main_page Radio Control], was abandoned, and now has one active user.

It looks like there's Star Wars as the most active Wikicity, and then there's Muppet Wiki, and then nobody else really comes close.

I would suggest that the people at Wikicities look at the way we run things at Muppet Wiki with an open mind. Our approach seems to be working better than almost anything else here. It's possible that the principles that you've inherited from Wikipedia don't apply to small niche wikis.

I think it would be fun to have a meeting on the IRC, with the Wikicities staff and our four admins, to talk about how Muppet Wiki could be used as a model for how to run a successful wiki. If you think that's a good idea, please let me know! -- Danny ''[[User:Toughpigs|Toughpigs]] 17:14, 23 March 2006 (UTC)''

::I feel compelled to mention the major effect on wiki's level of use is bound to be from their topics. For the record, I was one of the anonymous ones drawn to Muppet Wiki by the topic, but I made a handful of edits and the tone of the "Hi, how about getting a user name" message drove me away. -- [[User:Sine|Sine]] 22:11, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

::Hi Danny! Firstly, I was actually aware that Muppet was one of the most successful Wikicities - indeed, [[w:c:muppet:Talk:Main_Page#Redesign|as I mentioned]], that was why I was trying to improve the front page in the first place! Referring specifically to the front page edits, I was thinking more of it improving the site for casual visitors than editors - people make a first impression of a website at the second they arrive, and I didn't want to risk them thinking that it wasn't worth their time looking around. :-)

::As Sine says, the topic of the wiki is a major factor in its success. I would tend to say that growth to the capacity of the associated community and its culture base is inevitable once given a good start. The Creatures community had many thousands in its day, but that was six years ago and it is strictly limited in size now - therefore, there are limits to the size and popularity of its associated wiki. However, that is clearly not the only factor. More important is what you put on the pages.

::Fan encyclopedias are essentially about culture. The Creatures Wiki it is only as big as it is due to the large number of breeds, addons (COBs) and websites that have articles about them. Of course, there is not a lot to be said for some of them, and so the [http://wikicities.com/wikistatsnew/EN/TablesWikipediaCREATURES.htm mean page size] is smaller. [http://wikicities.com/wikistatsnew/EN/TablesWikipediaMUPPET.htm Muppet]'s are even smaller (or were in January - it may have changed since then, but the mean doesn't tend to change by much), most likely due to the large number of episodes, characters, stories and the like that have articles. This is one reason to be wary of article count as a measure of success - one month ago Muppet Wiki was 2.6Mb in size, while [http://wikicities.com/wikistatsnew/EN/TablesWikipediaFURRY.htm WikiFur was 3.5Mb]. Conversely, [http://wikicities.com/wikistatsnew/EN/TablesWikipediaSTARWARS.htm Star Wars was 21Mb]. Even if Muppet Wiki has doubled in size over the past month (which is possible, and cool if true), it is a bit of a stretch to put it in a class of its own.

::Wikis are always very busy when they first start out, but they tend to get slower as convenient sources of information are "used up". I have a feeling that a large part of the Muppet Wiki's overnight success in terms of size is the great number of sources that are already available in a database-like format. You do have quite a few people, but it seems like the majority of the edits are coming from [http://wikicities.com/wikistatsnew/EN/TablesWikipediaMUPPET.htm#wikipedians several high-volume editors]. I know from my work on the Creatures Wiki that it is a lot easier to write about something if you already have a large set of facts about it available. The [[w:c:muppet:Things you can do|Things you can do]] page is a good example of leveraging existing resources to create content. We don't have that luxury - there is a published Encyclopedia Fragglia, and other published sources of information collected over the course of the 50 years that the Muppets have been around, but there's no such Encyclopedia Furry yet - we like to think we're writing it!

::Sine here is a good example of why I feel that the policy of blocking contributors who have little interest in participating socially is an incorrect one. Sine made over 200 edits before creating an account, many of them entirely new articles. This sort of situation does not occur all that much, but it does happen, enough that 18% of our edits come from anonymous users. Conversely, we've found that many of those who [[Special:Activeusers|make accounts]] only post for a short amount of time (often once about themselves) and then disappear. I agree that a level of community is helpful and probably even necessary for a successful wiki project. However, I don't think that you ''need'' to exclude those that don't want to be a part of that community unless they are actively harming it.

::You're welcome to join us in [irc://irc.freenode.net/wikicities #wikicities] - I'm surprised that there are not more people from Muppet in there given its popularity. If you want to talk to the [[Wikicities:Wikia|Wikia staff]] then it would probably be the best place. I'm sure they'd be interested in discussing things with you, though I don't know that there's really a time when everyone's guaranteed to be around - I know [[Wikicities:User:Angela|Angela]] and [[Wikicities:User:Tim_Starling|Tim]] are in Australia, which can make coordination a bit tricky. Also, have you considered presenting your theories of wiki management at [http://wikimania.wikimedia.org/ WikiMania]? Community wikis are something that I think would be an interesting topic to discuss there. --{{UT|GreenReaper}} 03:09, 24 March 2006 (UTC):::

:::Hi! Andrew from Muppet Wiki here, weighing in. To quote you, Laurence: ''Sine here is a good example of why I feel that the policy of blocking contributors who have little interest in participating socially is an incorrect one.'' That's a bit of a misunderstanding, which I think your comment about real names on Muppet Wiki also shows. Registering and participating socially aren't the same thing. While we like to know people's real names (I know it makes it easier to treat users as people and not floating entities, and I feel I've made friends with folks like Danny and Scott and Brad and other Muppet Wiki regulars, which might have happened anyway but it's easier than if I knew them only as "FlyingSaucerhead666777LOL" or what have you. The real name is not a policy, just a strong suggestion, and it lets us put them on a community portal. Several new users have registered but not responded to messages. However, they're making clearly useful edits, and the username allows them and us to see what a help they've been. If they want to talk with us, that would be nice, but there's no penalty against it. Also, Sine, when did you visit us? The username thing has only been around for a month, and is still being tested. I apologize if it seemed too harsh to you, but I'm hoping you're beginning to see that there's method to our madness. There's four admins, all of whom have fulltime jobs or school outside of the Wiki, and the policy was developed after a rash of anonymous, truculent users and spammers were basically wasting all of our time, and I know I myself have been extremely stressed out about it. Is letting every anonymous user basically screw about and trying to revert them, sometimes five times in a row (for things which are akin to vandalism, but not outright spamming, i.e. inserting one opinionated sentence over and over), important enough to sacrifice our own mental health and energy? Softening the text has been suggested before, and I'm certainly willing to listen. --Andrew, ''[[User:Aleal|Aleal]] 03:31, 24 March 2006 (UTC)''

::::Here’s a few facts about our “exclusion.” (Warning, this is lengthy, but useufl I think) Of approximately 68 blocked Ips to date (generally spammers and trolls posting obscenities about Elmo, Kofi Annan, or Elton John), only 25 have been blocked with the User Name policy states as a reason. Of those, three were the same person, who kept making odd edits about Cookie Monster being an obscene reference. Two were the same IP for a person who kept posting odd messages which could be summarized as “Its stupid for Pigs in Space to have Swedish Chef as an alien and I’ll keep adding my opinion until I die”. Two IPS were a chap who apparently had a grudge against an obscure character.
::*One contributed demonstrably false information repeatedly,
::*One was the same as a previously registered user who had been blocked for amongst other things sending a barage of near-harassment e-mails to an admin
::*One kept switching questionable dates and refused to respond to our queries to him,
::*One basically acted like a jerk on pages (basically saying info was wrong and insisting he was right, but as he “wasn’t a joiner,” he refused to give any indication of what his source was except a general “trust me”),
::*One was actually a vandal (changing descriptions of Caroll Spinney to “the bird man”) but we gave him a username message anyway with its accompanying e-mail address if he wanted to play nice,
one did post some useful stuff but with a lot of NPOV (and again, refused to answer queries or suggestions about editing etiquette),
::*One made really strange comparisons which all had to be reverted
::*One created a page full of speculation and false info about a not yet released DVD (and when it was removed to a talk page, kept changing the same info on the talk page),
::*One kept editing a page to state how annoying another minor character was, another posted some useful info but also an obsessively long and irrelevant history of “Wheel of Fortune”,
::*One was yet another random unexplained date changer.

::I think I'm missing a couple more same IP situations, but basically, that accounts for 16 out of 25. Of the remainder, one was an accidental block which was reverted. So that leaves 8 people who were excluded (mostly folks just adding a period). It is kind of a shame, yes, but they can e-mail to get back in, and like I said, this is all an experiment (and a few of those basically linked to pages that didn't exist and in general didn't understand how a Wiki worked and showed no interest in learning). Though the policy claimes there's a five anonymous edit trial period, in many cases we've let them slide for up to ten or more, depending on the kind of edits they make. If other Wikicities folks are put off by the policy and don't join, that's also a shame but really, there's no point in worrying about people who choose not to participate for one reason or another, on the off chance that one is a long lost Muppet genius or truly brilliant writer who also likes Muppets. For the record, we've also unblocked two more users fairly recently, after questions were raised, to see if they come back and give them more time, as their edits were either useful or questionable (random name reordering) but not outright falsifying or vandalism,
::Finally, one more note on the policy. Yes, we have a community, and we invite others to participate in it. But there's a difference between "forcing socialization" and expecting basic etiquette, respect, and really just simple communication. There's one anonymous editor who has posted to talk pages, giving a name but not choosing to register, and really doing some useful work, though he only pops in twice a month or so. We haven't blocked him, though we've encouraged him to register, and I doubt we will. Why? Because he's read the FAQ, reads talk pages, in general is aware of what we're trying to accomplish with certain larger projects rather than just blanking or changing things to fit his own view and ignoring what all other editors do, causing edit wars. Apart from the "trust me" guy, not one of the blocked users I've listed ever responded to any direct friendly greetings, questions, or warnings. --Andrew, ''[[User:Aleal|Aleal]] 04:02, 24 March 2006 (UTC)''

:Hi there Andrew - thanks for chiming in with your reasoning, and the more detailed analysis of who and what has been affected. I think the idea of a lone muppet genius is suitable for a special muppet in and of itself. I can just imagine them with lots of scraggly thread-hair and a nervous tic. :-)

:I guess the nickname issue is just a difference of opinion and usage - one which I've noticed before in one other community. I've never had a problem making friends with people using only nicknames. Indeed, I know ''most'' of my friends by them, and I'd find it less convenient otherwise due to lack of distinctiveness (I'm pretty sure I know at least three Andrews online, for example, not counting yourself). Certainly in the furry fandom there are few people who do not have and use nicknames, both online and - in many cases - in real life.

:I appreciate that you need methods of keeping counterproductive behaviour under control. I just don't see how the chosen solution solves your problem without causing needless tension. We ban bad editors as well, for various reasons, but quite a few of our most troublesome edits have come from people who have taken the time to register. The bad people are still likely to make edits, and the clever bad ones will realise that they can do so more easily with a username. Worse, it's quite possible to make multiple accounts on one IP and thus make it less clear who is agreeing or disagreeing with who.

:As for the user who keeps inserting the same sentance over and over again, or the date-switchers - no, if it's a problem then you should deal with it, as with the other cases you describe. But I don't see why you can't do so under policies that make it clear that you will ban them for ''that'', not for being unregistered users. You seem to be attacking the symptom, and not the cause. If the flood of edits is too much for four people to deal with (and I can understand how that would be, particularly after Something Awful paid us a visit last August), I would suggest you need to find more people from within your own ranks who you can trust with admin powers. [[WikiFur:Administrators|We have more]] - not all of them are around all the time, but enough to make me worry less about working late and not being able to look in once in a while. :-)

:Oh, and MediaWiki also has a feature for "monitoring" edits and flagging unmonitored ones in Recent changes. You might want to ask the Wikia team about the possibility of turning that back on for Muppet Wiki, so that you only need one admin checking each edit. --{{UT|GreenReaper}} 04:42, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

:::Laurence, I'm a little surprised by the way you're interpreting the facts. You said that our wiki was "less successful" because of our policies, but I'm finding it hard to pin down what your measure for success is. I'm pointing out that our article count, number of active contributors, number of edits and database size is larger than any other Wikicity except for one. In response, you suggest that the defining factor is our mean page size. I would say that's a little unfair, and I think at this point you're deliberately trying to find fault with Muppet Wiki because you don't agree with our community rules.

:::The question, really, is whether the Wikipedia-received philosophy that you're working with is open to evidence or not. I think that the Wikipedia rules work very well for Wikipedia, which has thousands of users, but they don't work for smaller niche wikis. I can back that up with the clear evidence of our success. I would hope that you and the other Wikicities admins are at least open to considering that evidence, and thinking about whether the structure that you're promoting is really working or not.

:::In your response, you were looking at some outdated stats, so here's a link to [http://www.wikicities.com/muppetstats/TablesWikipediaMUPPET.htm Muppet Wiki's current stats].

:::Here's what you said about database size: ''"This is one reason to be wary of article count as a measure of success - one month ago Muppet Wiki was 2.6Mb in size, while WikiFur was 3.5Mb. Conversely, Star Wars was 21Mb. Even if Muppet Wiki has doubled in size over the past month (which is possible, and cool if true), it is a bit of a stretch to put it in a class of its own."''

:::In fact, if you look at the current stats, Muppet Wiki's database is 6.1Mb. It's ''more'' than doubled in size in the past month. In fact, at this rate, it'll be more than twice as big as WikiFur within a few weeks.

:::It's also interesting to compare the number of contributors. You said that Muppet Wiki has "several high-volume editors" -- in fact, according to the latest stats, we have 11 contributors who have made over 1000 edits. WikiFur only has four contributors who have made that many edits -- and according to your post, many of your contributors sign on, create a page about themselves, and leave. Apparently, Muppet Wiki isn't just better at attracting contributors; we're better at keeping them, too.

:::It's easy to come up with explanations for why Muppet Wiki is an "overnight success" -- we have a great topic, we tapped into an existing fan community, we're working from existing databases. But really, those are just excuses. I think it's obvious that we're an overnight success because we know how to grow and manage a small, active wiki. I think you ought to consider that maybe somebody else has a really good idea that you could learn something from.

:::Now, we're not coming here to have a pissing contest with you about whose wiki is bigger, or better. The point is that I care a lot about Wikicities, and I think that the administrators here are making some mistakes in the way that you deal with the people on the wikis. I think that the evidence is right there for you to see. The vast majority of wikis on this site are limping along at best. And, unfortunately, now that you have a new successful wiki here, the only thing you can do is come up with reasons to criticize us.

:::Here's my final point, and I think it's very revealing about the way that Wikicities administrators are running things. Muppet Wiki has been in operation for close to four months, and in that time, we've become the second most popular wiki here. Let's do the numbers.

:::''Number of Wikicities admins who have come by to complain about our policies, and tell us that we don't know how to run a successful wiki:'' Three.

:::''Number of Wikicities admins who have come by to say, wow, you guys are really active and successful, it looks like you're doing a nice job:'' Zero.

:::You guys talk a lot about supporting healthy, active communities, but nobody from Wikicities has ''ever'' said a single nice word about our wiki, in all the time that we've been here. In fact, on this very page, all you can do is come up with reasons to tear us down and make us feel bad. You keep saying that we're excluding people, and not being friendly. Would it kill you to say something nice once in a while? Any of you? -- Danny ''[[User:Toughpigs|Toughpigs]] 05:02, 24 March 2006 (UTC)''

:Andrew: Thinking about it, the problem is not just the people you block; it's the people that you leave messages for who decide never to come back. I noticed in particular the text "it'll help you (and everyone) keep track of your contributions" on the first line. That's ''your'' reason for wanting it, and its tone puts me off the idea of registering. Perhaps you need more carrots? There are many good reasons for registering that are totally unconnected with everyone knowing who is doing what. You could make a page [[Help:Registration|like this one]] explaining in more detail why they should register, and emphasising its speed and nonintrusivity. As I touched on above, an awful lot of things are not written down in the furry fandom, and I wouldn't want to lose the only people who know about them just because they felt pressured to join up or leave. --{{UT|GreenReaper}} 08:41, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

::Thanks for pointing out those updated stats for me. If I had been aware of them, I would probably not have made some of the assertions I made above, as they do paint a clearer picture of your current status. I will have to ask JasonR/Tim how they're doing about getting that integrated with the main system, because I know we all want them. I would note that [http://google.com/analytics Google Analytics] is also worth installing if you wish to know more about where your visitors are coming from and where they are going.

::I do still believe the "excuses" I made for Muppet Wiki's growth are good excuses - or rather, I honestly think that they are major reasons for its growth. The fact that Muppet Wiki has gotten to the point where these factors start to '''''matter''''' and drive the continued growth is the one that I consider to be attributable to Muppet's core leadership. Let me be clear on one thing, if nothing else - '''I think that it is great that we have another successful wikicity, and without you and your friends it would never have happened.''' I hope you manage to find the time to enjoy it as well as to run it! Perhaps when the [http://www.usemod.com/cgi-bin/mb.pl?TargetReached target is reached] . . .

::If you think that Wikia (who I do not represent) is doing a bad job in terms of community outreach - well, maybe you're right. Ultimately, though, their first job is to make sure that things run smoothly, which is hard enough when you have one wiki to deal with, let alone a thousand. It's all to easy to focus on the problems rather than the good things that are happening. If you want to improve that, then why not hang around in IRC and drop a few links to some of your neater articles as they come up? Maybe we would have a greater appreciation of the highlights of Muppet Wiki if we knew about them.

::I checked out the IRC log for last month. We all said the same things I've said recently - that we thought it would discourage casual contributors, and probably wouldn't solve your problem. Was it that surprising that the same people who'd talked about it were concerned to hear that you'd implemented it anyway? Remember, their job is to solve problems, and trust me, it sure ''sounds'' like a problem if people are getting banned from a wiki just for not logging in. While the problem you have needs a solution - large numbers of troublesome IP edits that your admin team don't have time to handle - I still think that adding admins is a far better route than to try to eliminate the IPs with a "join up or don't contribute" policy. If you are spending all your time fighting fires then there will be less time to drive other projects, and if you all burn out then there will be nobody to take over.

::With all that said - I did start editing at Muppet Wiki a fortnight ago with the specific goal of making the most improvement in the shortest amount of time - about two hours, initially. Ultimately, I did the same thing as the Wikia members of staff - I saw what I considered to be a problem, and I tried to fix it. I made the mistake of not leaving fast enough after that, instead realising that I disagreed with several more things and trying to fix them as well. That ''was'' arrogant of me, no doubt, and I apologise for it. I would probably be tempted to do it again, though, so forgive me for not coming over to congratulate you on the new layout! I've already spent over a day more than I intended dealing with this, and my manager is probably wondering what that strange eye logo on my web browser is. :-)

::I now think I understand why Wikicities has failed to be the all-embracing happy family of co-contributing wikis that was originally envisioned. For a wiki to succeed, it must have a strong leadership team with a clear vision that can build a community. It is hard enough to find that, but it is even harder to get such teams to work together (because they all ''have'' to believe they have good ideas, and want to implement them, otherwise they wouldn't have gone to the considerable trouble of properly founding a wiki). Even when they do join forces, they don't have the time to give the group project their full attention due to prior commitments to their own projects.

::As for contributing to '''each other's''' wikis . . . well, in at least one case that hasn't worked out quite as intended, has it? :-) I suspect that if the person concerned is ''that'' interested enough to take time off from other projects to gain contributor status and join another wiki's culture, then they'd probably already have founded it. We have many separate wikicities now, but "separate" is the key word. There are fifty internal links to every one interwiki link . . . and [http://wikicities.com/wikistatsnew/EN/TablesDatabaseWikiLinks.htm almost all of them] are between the four different languages of [[MemoryAlpha:|Memory Alpha]].

::I think the concept of [[Wikicities:Wikicitizens|wikicitizens]] who travel freely between wikis is inherently flawed - no-one can truly be a member of every wikicity, just as nobody can have citizenship in more than a few countries. It is a shame, but I don't really see a way around it. At least the GFDL is in place, so the best wiki syntax ideas can be copied from one wiki to another, but it's harder to copy culture piecemeal. I don't really want to have to wait until I decide to move on and [http://www.usemod.com/cgi-bin/mb.pl?StartAgain start again] to try things, though, so I'll have a look at what you've done (particularly in the area of making talk pages more discoverable, which would probably help here) and maybe try implementing similar things here and see how they go. Fair deal? --{{UT|GreenReaper}} 08:41, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

:::I'm afraid you've lost me completely. People we leave messages for who decide never to come back? I have no idea what Sine's situation was, but in keeping track of patterns in both editing and our responses to them, I've yet to see an occasion where we post a welcome and then that person leaves. Whether to make useful edits or to post nonsense, they stick around. A registration page might not hurt, but I also don't see what's wrong about suggesting users might find the watchlist useful, and that if other editors can see what they're doing, they can assist, congratulate, and generally pitch in. As I've said several times before, I understand the concern about our policies but only if you think they'll set a nasty precedent. Like I keep saying, it's an experiment born from necessity. And it *has* cut down on fires. The biggest fires stressing me out right now are these sort of discussions, which keep pulling me and the others away from fun projects (such as seeing how many American states we can create pages for with in terms of their Muppet context, from filming locations and references to birth places) has me incredibly stressed. We greet people and try to be as friendly as possible. I make a point of putting a specific compliment or suggestion to almost every anonymous user I can. You mentioned our way of banning those who repeatedly add nonsense sentences, not saying we shouldn't ban them, but that we shouldn't bring up the username policy? When that happens, as opposed to outright vandals, we *always* include an e-mail address where they can explain what they were trying to do if they're genuinely clueless or good natured but a bit confused. Basically, we're giving those people a greater benefit of the doubt. Anyway, I'm tired of this whole thing which started when you redesigned our page without even so much as "Hi!" and then complained about how we were voting about it. I respect your position as admin, but please, respect ours and what we're trying to do, which you admit you have no real interest in and have generally given an impression of not really having looked at the Wiki outside of the design page and the discussions related to it.
:::I would like to reiterate that a) we're not forcing people to socialize, b) we don't block people just for not registering, we block them for not communicating in anyway; they can be unsigned in but communicate, or they can register and be silent, but those who do both have by editing patterns proven to be counterproductive, as we just have to keep reverting them 5 or 10 times in a row; c) the real name thing is *not* a policy, and we have at least four or five active contributors I can think of right now, plus some new ones, who register but don't want their real name on the Wiki and we respect that (and it should be noted that just today, ''Sesame Street'' writer/composer Christopher Cerf, who was part of the show from the beginning through the 90s, registered under his real name, edited and *explained* each edit, and generally has been friendly and correcting far more misinformation and adding more good stuff in just three posts than this mythical anonymous user who won't even say hi or register or anything but knows more than anyone else about Muppets).
:::This has been an experiment, and in fact we've had to date at least 8 to ten users, whether they stick around for long or not, who registered as a direct response to the Username policy, having had enough time to play around and see what we're doing. If we can see that it's not working, we'll try something else. Anyway, all the best to you. It's not worth my losing any more sleep over this matter. How about we agree to disagree and stay in our own spheres, until/unless anyone within Muppet Wiki, anonymous or registered, complains about how we run things, or how we choose to design our main page? :) --Andrew, ''[[User:Aleal|Aleal]] 11:08, 24 March 2006 (UTC)''

::::Laurence, I'm glad to hear that you'll take another look at Muppet Wiki. That's really all that I'd ask, for people to just look around and see how it's going. When you do that, if you have any thoughts or questions about anything, feel free to post on my page and ask me about it.

::::I absolutely understand that people don't have time to be a real contributing part of the other wikis -- everybody's busy working on their own, or at least we should be! I just have one suggestion, which I'll offer to you and all of the Wikicities admins.

::::I think it would be a good idea if some of the Wikicities admins made it a practice to visit other wikis once in a while, and say something encouraging. If you only come in to "fix a problem", then you're going to get a bad response, especially if the community doesn't perceive it to be a problem. On the other hand, ''everybody'' appreciates a compliment. It's one of the basic principles of how to give feedback -- you say something nice first, before you say something critical. Giving encouragement helps people to trust you, and like you, and then you earn the right to criticize.

::::So this is my proposal for any Wikicities admin who feels like doing it: Every once in a while -- maybe once a week -- pick a wiki to visit. It could be an active one, or a struggling one. Look at the recent changes list, and click on a couple of articles that look interesting. Try to get a sense of what the community is working on at the moment.

::::Then just post something nice. It could be on the talk page of a well-written article, or the user page for the person who wrote it, or an admin's user page. Just say, "Hey, that's a neat article. I didn't know that (pick an interesting fact). Looks like you guys are doing a good job on this wiki. If there's anything I can help you with, let me know."

::::That whole thing could take about half an hour. I think if you guys are spending time chatting on the IRC, then you probably have half an hour once a week to go pick a wiki and poke around on it. It would probably even energize you and keep you focused on why Wikicities is a good place -- you'll get to visit a bunch of other "countries", and maybe learn something that you didn't know before. Now that I think about it, it sounds like fun to me too, so maybe I'll start doing it myself.

::::Anyway, the point is that it would create a nice feeling of community among all the disparate wikis here. We don't have to be contributors on each other's wikis, but it would be nice if we were friendly colleagues. It would also build trust between a wiki's leadership team and the Wikicities admins -- so when an actual problem comes up, they'll appreciate your help.

::::So I hope that's helpful. As heated as this conversation has gotten in places, I'm glad that we've had the chance to talk about this stuff. -- Danny ''[[User:Toughpigs|Toughpigs]] 14:47, 24 March 2006 (UTC)''

::Andrew: Seems fine with me. I'm sure that if changes in your policies or guidelines appear to be necessary, your own users will suggest them in time. I shouldn't have tried to speed up the process by (e.g.) importing voting process ideas from Wikipedia, since as you say, it's a different place, and I was personally involved with the outcome of the vote.

::Danny: That's a good idea, and what you say makes sense. I will suggest it to the Wikia admins and the other Wikicities founders that I'm friends with. I know they've been watching; I directed them here when it became clear that it was an issue with wider relevance.

::The more I think about it, the more the "Wikicountries" idea seems more relevant. Countries often have heated disagreements about how other countries do things, often rooted in a lack of understanding about why things are that way due to inexperience with foreign culture or situations. Some sort of "cultural exchange" program like you suggest does seem appropriate. I think the Featured Wikicity program was partly an attempt at that, but it's not specifically targeted for that problem, and it relies on people from the wiki concerned coming out and explaining what's cool rather than others going in and understanding it for themselves (enough to write about it, say). We need both.

::I have to go to work now, so I'll be brief. Good luck with your projects, and let's hope we never have to go to war. I hate to think of what it would do to the [[Funday PawPet Show|FPS]] crew to have to choose sides. :-) --{{UT|GreenReaper}} 16:13, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

::::I think another possible metaphor is [[Wikipedia:Federalism|federalism]], which is the way things work in the US. There's an overarching "national" structure (Wikicities), and then each wiki is a state, or a (wiki)city.

::::There's some "national" laws that apply to all the wikis -- we don't harass or insult people, we assume good faith, we don't violate copyright. If we want to be accepted as part of this country, then we need to abide by the federal laws.

::::And then within that national structure, there's room for a state to make its own laws, based on things that only affect that state. In the US, states can make their own laws about school funding, or abortion, or the death penalty. The federal government only gets involved if you cross state lines, or if a case gets appealed up to federal court.

::::So for us here on Wikicities, individual wikis get to set their own policies, and run things the way that they want to. Some wikis are run well, and they prosper. Others are run badly, and they stagnate. You might like the way they run things on a particular wiki, or not, but that's federalism for you. Ultimately, a wiki can be judged on its own terms -- by how well it's performing, and how happy the people are.

::::So you don't have to worry about a "war", there's no chance of that. It would be like Massachusetts declaring war on Connecticut. You might think, man, the people in Montana just don't have a clue, but that's a problem for the citizens of Montana to figure out.

::::The wikis don't have to compete with each other. We're all part of the same project, and in the big picture, we're all working together to make the United States of Wikicities stronger and better. -- Danny ''[[User:Toughpigs|Toughpigs]] 16:21, 24 March 2006 (UTC)''

::Hmm. States going to war over ideological issues - you mean [[Wikipedia:American Civil War|like this]]? :-) But yes, I get your point. I think that the only real "wars" that have or will occur are between wikicities and other web communities that hold an opposing point of view. Most wiki editors understand the relative ease of defending the home turf from having done so before, so they're unlikely to bother going on the offensive even if they're firmly opposed to another wiki (e.g. NRA Forever vs Gun Control Wiki), but we've had a few experiences with forums and LiveJournal communities that were less than pleasant.

::Now all we need is a national motto! Maybe we could steal "United in diversity" . . . --{{UT|GreenReaper}} 18:08, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

== Thank You ==

:''Hi there, Ransom, and welcome to WikiFur! Thanks for your contributions so far - let me know if you need any help not already provided. :-) --[[user:GreenReaper|GreenReaper]]<sup>(talk)</sup> 16:17, 24 March 2006 (UTC)''

Thanks for the warm welcome. I spend most of my time just drawing, so it's been a while since I put my writing skills to any use, but I'm looking to polish the rust off. WikiFur is a really interesting concept. Someone's already written a little blurb about me, which is pretty slick, and I intend to write more about others I know.

Thanks again, and take it easy.

[[user:Ransom|Ransom]]

== Main wiki links ==

Anyway, to my question to [[user:GreenReaper|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 [[Wikipedia:zoophilia|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:Timothy Albee|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)? --[[User:Chibiabos|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:What WikiFur is not#Wikifur is not Wikipedia|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. -- [[User:Siege|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? --[[User:Chibiabos|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 [[Wikipedia:Ursa Major Awards|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 <nowiki>[[WikiFur:</nowiki>. I am reluctant to do ''too'' much in the way of interwiki links on Wikipedia due to perception of them as "leeching". I have tested this out with fairly innocuous links and people were [[Wikipedia:User:GreenReaper/Village pump discussion of Stardock and WikiFur|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 <nowiki>{{WikiFur|original page name}}</nowiki> tag to the discussion for the article.

:Sorry, I missed the other question, will reply. --{{UT|GreenReaper}} 10:46, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

== ASCII banner failing to show properly ==

GreenReaper wrote:

Umm, I'm using Firefox myself, and the ascii logos work fine here. What platform and version are you on? What do they look like for you? Do you have any ideas as to what might improve the rendering? --{{UT|GreenReaper}} 02:04, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

----
Reply:

Here is the sceen shot:
http://vore.got-game.org/misc/Capture.png

As you can see, there is a problem in characters alignement on my 1280x1024 screen (using Firefox v1.0.7), but this problem does not show on my laptop (1680x1050, same version of Firefox) where more room exists horizontally.

:That screen looks to me as if your browser isn't rendering the ASCII title in a fixed-width font. -- [[User:Sine|Sine]] 21:17, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

::It does !

:How does it work on a more recent build of Firefox? --{{UT|GreenReaper}} 00:03, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

::This is not a build issue, as it shows fine with v1.0.7 on a larger screen... In any case, I can't test it with v1.5.0.1 as the latter won't work when compiled without anti-aliased font support (anti-aliased fonts are ugly and fuzzy in my opinion, not to mention they slow down things to a crawl on "old" computers, so I don't use them).

== 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. -- [[User:Sine|Sine]] 18:34, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

:Good call! Feel free to [[Template:Sitenotice|edit it yourself]]. Oh, and welcome to the [[Wikifur:Administrators|admin team]]. :-) --{{UT|GreenReaper}} 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? <tt>;)</tt> -- [[User:Sine|Sine]] 19:48, 27 March 2006 (UTC) (Echoed on my own talk page)

:::Probably the best resources are Wikipedia's pages on [[Wikipedia:Wikipedia:Administrators|administrators]] and their [[Wikipedia:Wikipedia:Administrators' how-to guide|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 [[Wikipedia:Wikipedia:Be bold in updating pages|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. --{{UT|GreenReaper}} 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. -- [[User:Sine|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]]. --{{UT|GreenReaper}} 18:03, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

:Ow.. my grammar. ;_; --[[User:Nidonocu|Nidonocu]] - [[User talk: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 [[Wikipedia:Stardock|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 --[[User:Chibiabos|Chibiabos]] 21:23, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

:Yes . . . again! I'll be making another archive shortly. --{{UT|GreenReaper}} 23:57, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

== More Double Redirect Weirdness ==

OK, this one has me mystified. Take a look at [[Special:DoubleRedirects]]; I can't figure out what the deal is with the Big Tig article, and why it's showing up as a double redirect. Maybe there's some control characters in there that I'm missing?--[[User:DuncanDaHusky|Duncan da Husky]] 14:35, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

:I re-typed the text and re-saved the page, and it seems to be okay now. Maybe it was a Unicode or cache issue? -- [[User:Siege|Siege]] 17:54, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

::This sometimes happens when pages get moved around. As Siege found, it tends to clear up once you edit the page. --{{UT|GreenReaper}} 18:00, 28 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 [[WikiFur:Help Desk#Page_creation|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. --[[User:DuncanDaHusky|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. --{{UT|GreenReaper}} 09:27, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

== GFDL links ==

I've noticed that the GFDL link image has been missing since the DNS change. Is that a problem with our links, or with Wikia? -- [[User:Siege|Siege]] 18:55, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

:As far as I know, it's Wikia. It's been noted on their page for discussion of problems, just not fixed yet! --{{UT|GreenReaper}} 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 -- [[User:Sine|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. --{{UT|GreenReaper}} 09:27, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

== Hi there! ==

Wow... I had not realized that wiki's could be this...complicated. :D

Thanks for the message, hopefully I won't do anything too complicated to need help with. I'll let ya know if something comes up.

I don't know if it is good or bad that the High Tail Hall page is one of the more popular ones. All I know is that I have information on it, from a forum, and that I will take it upon myself to translate it here. If people ask you about it, I guess you could always send 'em my way. Maybe I should make an account, eh?

EDIT: Made an account, I'm under the name Axel now.