Forum:A new way to request multimedia help

Forums: Index > Village Dump > A new way to request multimedia help

Note: This topic has been unedited for 4990 days. It is considered archived - the discussion is over.

I know how everybody likes voting on everything here, and in my relatively short time as unofficial part-time co-curator of UN:PIC, I've often noticed (aside from it being an underused asset yadda yadda, etc) that it seems to be the village dumping ground for requests completely unrelated to the purpose of Image Request - which again, since I've spent a bit of time here I'll hazard the guess that its true purpose is for photoshopping faces on copyrighted flickr pictures of dicks or annoying amateur "photojournalists" with raccoons, or something like that.

Music, voice, formatting, and template-related requests are ending up there, and elsewhere on the site people seem to be asking sophisticated formatting related questions not on the Help Forum, but on the Talk pages of the articles themselves. While this is clean and tidy, it also ensures their questions are never answered by those best equipped to answer them, their "things" moved about with godlike admin powers, and their bright ideas researched. Some good questions about how to achieve certain effects are being left out. Since we're spearheading wiki parody, shouldn't we have an area other than Uncyclopedia:Hacks to share our more esoteric knowledge?

To keep the Help Forum the Help forum, and to have an additional place to dump better curate the miscellaneous technical and creative queries of our most lazy valued article contributors, I stole created a prototype Requests page for your consideration and to survey everyone's interest in the subject, especially those who have created such immersive parody pages as Microsoft Knowledge Base.

Here it is. Also, open to suggestions for the name. I was thinking Expert Requests (UN:ER), but defaulted to the RFC-spec-like Request For Wizards (UN:RFW).

Feel free to complain about the impracticality of this ludicrous and unnecessary plan below.

--KUN VFH POTM VFP(IMAGES⇔TALK) 21:17, August 18, 2010 (UTC)

Help with audios

Don't forget UN:AUDIO that really needs to be revived. ~ Mordillo where is my CHOAD? 22:38, August 18, 2010 (UTC)

I didn't know about that one! User:SPIKE/UnNews#Audio--Technical details is my tutorial about making UnNews Audios and other audios, also the earlier HowTo:Do An UnNews Audio. I endorse reorganizing so that teaching and learning is done in a way, and in a place, where others can also benefit from it. Spıke Ѧ 22:41 18-Aug-10

That'll be great. It sort of died away when all audio makers vanished. But we're stealing Mip's thunder. ~ Mordillo where is my CHOAD? 22:43, August 18, 2010 (UTC)

I don't mind stealing his thunder, which I assume he will recapture when the *voting* below begins. Meanwhile, a word about titling Forums so as to give some idea of the material within. I thought Forum:More VFD stuff was vague, until I saw the positively cryptic "Misc. Request". For God's sake, that could be anything! Please, people, neither crack wise nor vague with the titles of things. Those of us who have a vague idea of having read something important in the Village Dump need all the help we can get to return to the correct thread. 23:11 Forum now renamed. Spıke Ѧ 23:27 18-Aug-10

• Ouch. Was just about to respond to this when the page was moved. Apologize for falling into the "nominative vagueness" zeitgeist that has pervaded the Dump, and I certainly didn't intend to conflict with UN:AUDIO (especially since I didn't know such resources existed despite being here on and off since 2007). Lurking in the Forum had led me to believe that the best way to get attention to a noble effort that some might find boring is to begin with a tired in-joke. Page formatting surely isn't high on the typical IP's radar (especially if as even a new user they can't find the upload button), and so I supposed (mistakenly) that a nudge was in order (given although perceived as democratic, that the main forum isn't the more orderly Help one) before getting to more serious matters. Which are principally my aim. This proposal was meant to be a place for more advanced users to ask each other for in-depth help on customizing the look and feel of their articles, rather than the "literacy" effort proper. I had conceived this as a small curiosity, but if you'd like to get a band of concerned users together to effect a wider change, consider me the first to join you. --KUN VFH POTM VFP(IMAGES⇔TALK) 23:50, August 18, 2010 (UTC)

Vote: It's Your Civic Duty, But We're Kind Of Lax on the Checking Up

Score: +1

• Maybe. Let's stipulate that you are a funny guy. Please crack less wise with the Request for Wizards page. Yes, this is a comedy site; but anyone going here doesn't want one more laugh; they want help, so let's get the key information to them a little more quickly. 23:18 PS--Embrace the challenge not just of re-doing the page for requests for photos but to catalog the many independent efforts to teach multimedia skills (see above). Recently, I even got a request for help uploading, which everyone might assume was common knowledge. Spıke Ѧ 23:22 18-Aug-10
• For. —POOPY WHORE Mr. Antonio Yettie (talk) [00:51 20 August 2010]

I Like This Idea

Although I think the request page should be tidier and much simpler than the example one you linked, meep. I do, however, think it's a good idea. To centralise all that sort of request help in one place. So you could request audio for an article or your sig to expand or something. I dunno. I like it. —POOPY WHORE Mr. Antonio Yettie (talk) [00:51 20 August 2010]

Alright, I cut a fair bit of the jokecruft and also added a massive template (in the interest of expanding the visibility of the preexisting Help resources without touching them) that I sure would have enjoyed being welcomed with when I joined up. I'm definitely not firm on the "deservingness" of half of those links on the list, so I'd like anyone who has some favorite helpful pages or special UnProject tutorials to go ahead and add them, because the niche stuff should probably be more of the focus there. --KUN VFH POTM VFP(IMAGES⇔TALK) 05:05, August 20, 2010 (UTC)

I still think it's a touch messy. There's a lot of text thrown all over the place and I have a feeling that might a bit overwhelming if you're a noob. Like the idea though. —POOPY WHORE Mr. Antonio Yettie (talk) [10:36 20 August 2010]

Hey! You're written up in UnSignpost! 13:02 Seconding Yettie, before this hits mainspace, please continue taking out the yucks and vanity, in favor of a matter-of-fact directory to tutorials, plus a guide to where and how to request help. Spıke Ѧ 13:41 20-Aug-10

There's still some stuff that could be gotten rid of

But the section is now visibly pared down. Also, an advanced and miscellaneous request page isn't just for or even ideal for noobs, but some measures have been taken to make it noob friendly: the template o'links, the shorter format, the keyboard shortcut to add requests at the expense of newest first sort order. --KUN VFH POTM VFP(IMAGES⇔TALK) 20:02, August 20, 2010 (UTC)