Forum:Colonizations
I've removed the {{colonizations}} from the main page for now. I think the project needs a lot of supervision to work, and right now it's just languishing there...forlorn...so until someone wants to dedicate the time to watch over them, we might as well keep the front page a bit shorter. --—rc (t) 04:07, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
Heck, why stop at half-measures? Delete the "Other areas of Uncyclopædia" nonsense (it merely duplicates the mediawiki:sidebar) and the {{donate}} stuff (as there's already a 'donate' link up top and the box was only there as a then-timely response to the earthquakes and Hurricane Katrina). Knock 'featured image' down to one column instead of two, something like Main Page (editable). The front page starts off well but the lower portion is a cluttered mess of semi-useless links which could use some work. --Carlb 17:56, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
- I still think that the feature picture should be returned to it's rightful place at the top of the page. It's hardly featured if everybody has to scroll through a bunch of bullshiand "on this day" templates to see it. --Spin 19:30, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
- And while I'm at it, I think "word of the day" should go. It has never once been funny and constantly spawns useless stubs. --Spin 19:32, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
- So you'd put the featured image in place of "word of the day"? --Carlb 20:42, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
- I say get rid of word of the day and keep featured picture where it is, and both for the same reason: to maintain similarity with Wikipedia format. --
22:52, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
- I say get rid of word of the day and keep featured picture where it is, and both for the same reason: to maintain similarity with Wikipedia format. --
- I say get rid of colonizations, update war on terra. Replace word of the day with featured image.--Rataube 23:21, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
- I think WotD should be reconsidered, but in it's own topic. I think the picture is fine where it is, but I would also note that the picture is where it is because it was voted that way. Basically the only differences between the various main page designs were where the picture was. The one we have was the winner, so if we want to change it, we need a real forum thread dedicated just to that, along with a vote, IMO. ---
Rev. Isra (talk) 01:19, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
- I think WotD should be reconsidered, but in it's own topic. I think the picture is fine where it is, but I would also note that the picture is where it is because it was voted that way. Basically the only differences between the various main page designs were where the picture was. The one we have was the winner, so if we want to change it, we need a real forum thread dedicated just to that, along with a vote, IMO. ---
I like the main page just fine.--User:Jtaylor1/sig 05:57, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
| User | Colonizations | WotD | Other Areas of Uncyc. | Donate | move FP to top right | Swap Annivs. and Did you know |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rcmurphy | X | - | X | - | N | - |
| Carlb | X | - | X | X | Y | - |
| Spin | X | X | X | X | Y | - |
| Savethemooses | X | X | - | - | N | - |
| Rataube | X | X | X | N | Y | - |
| Rangeley | X | - | X | X | N | - |
| Isra1337 | X | X | - | - | - | - |
| JTaylor1 | N | N | N | N | N | N |
| Elvis | X | X | N | X | N | Y |
| Splaka | X | X | - | - | N | - |
| Famine | X | K | R | I | FN | IDK |
| gwax | - | N | - | - | N | - |
| Tompkins | X | N | - | - | N | N |
| Conniption | X | X | N | - | N | Y |
| Totals | +11=X Removed | +3=X | +2=X Removed | +2=X Removed | +7=N No change | 0 |
| X = Ditch, N = No Change, Y = Yes, - = No Opinion | ||||||
I made a table!, update as required!!, I also think we should swop the annivs and did you know after ditching WotD and being a bit more nai on annivs.--The Right Honourable Maj Sir Elvis UmP KUN FIC MDA VFH Bur. CM and bars UGM F@H (Petition) 10:13, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
- Voted in the table. I'd suggest Word of the Day be deprecated to some other area besides the main page, possibly the Undictionary main page. PS: I only created it as an experiment in templates (I think David Gerard was the one to put it on the main page? Algo streamlined the code, and gwax built much of the list from user suggestions. It was funny when it was "Procrastinate" for a month.) --Splaka 11:27, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
- I agree with Isra that we shouldn't throw in the Featured Image issue here with all this other stuff. As much as I'd like to see the FI have more prominence on the front page, that battle was fought and lost already. --—rc (t) 14:07, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
- What of the languages box? Do the ones which don't have their own wiki (often one-page entries swapping the front page to some other theme) need to be on the main page, or should there be a separate main page for the Babel: project (much like http://www.wikipedia.org brings up a list of languages instead of being the same as http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page)?
- WP also has a languages list in the mainpages. They should stay. Uncy should be proud of all this foreign projects inspired on her. Driving possible contributors to the is a good thing to do. Besides, this prevents all the "Qua?" content from taking over again. Please sign your commments--Rataube 20:13, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
Foreign languages should stay. ~Sir Rangeley 
GUN WotM UotM EGA +S (talk) 01:51, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
- What's wrong with WotD? --Sir gwax (talk)
01:56, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
- People don't actually produce a good WotD 75% of the time. That's why I voted "Know" for that one.
Sir Famine, Gun ♣ Petition » 02:47, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
- The hope is that when we have more content, there will be fewer red link Word of the Days and it will become more of a semi-random one word article of the day link. --Sir gwax (talk) 14:15, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
- We could always bring it back when we get to that point.--Rataube 15:52, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
- The hope is that when we have more content, there will be fewer red link Word of the Days and it will become more of a semi-random one word article of the day link. --Sir gwax (talk)
- People don't actually produce a good WotD 75% of the time. That's why I voted "Know" for that one.
I removed {{Donate}} (in addition to {{Colonizations}}). I left the WotD voting open because 1. It's a biggish change and 2. I don't know if people want to replace it with something else or just remove it altogether.
Also, for clarification, I think Carlb's suggestion was to remove only the "Other parts of Uncyclopedia" heading (UnHelp Desk, Dump, Community Portal) for the big project template, not the entire thing, if anybody was unsure. (They probably weren't.) It's closer to Wikipedia's main page but it's redundant and doesn't really even fit with the rest of the template. --—rc (t) 02:55, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
- Re: Carlb's suggestion, no I did realise that I just disagreed. Also I'm really not sure what Famine's vote on WOTD means, but I think we could usefuly ditch WOTD and add another couple of lines of DYK. (we may end up everynow and again with 2 the same but the chances are fairly slim and it's entirely in character (of course this is all part of my super secret evil scheme to swap DYK and in this day to better copy en.wp)--The Right Honourable Maj Sir Elvis UmP KUN FIC MDA VFH Bur. CM and bars UGM F@H (Petition) 18:44, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
- As my edit clearly noted, I feel that we should keep WOTD and grow it into something good. At the moment it's kinda sparse, but ala the "on this day" stuff, it takes time to grow. If we remove it, I doubt that some ambitious person will go ahead and make the 300+ WOTD articles we need. Sir Famine, Gun ♣ Petition » 20:55, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
- As my edit clearly noted, I feel that we should keep WOTD and grow it into something good. At the moment it's kinda sparse, but ala the "on this day" stuff, it takes time to grow. If we remove it, I doubt that some ambitious person will go ahead and make the 300+ WOTD articles we need.
- With regard to WOTD, I find it comforting and furry. That aside, 2 questions: (01) Can or should made up words like cyanorectophobia be used, and (10) Maybe we could loop through UnDictionary's contents in order to avoid broken (red) links. Ok, fine, that was one question and one suggestion. --Zim_ulator (Talk - Edits Logs) (Zim_ulator and Evelyn the Modified Dog) 09:54, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
Not to beat a dead horse, but...
Personally, I really like colonizations. Most colonizations end up producing really quality articles, and it's great to collaborate with other users on an article. Why don't other people like it? -AtionSong 01:12, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
- It's not that people don't like it - I think most people would agree it's a great idea when it works - but rather that it needs constant supervision, especially if it's supposed to be a weekly thing. And nobody seems to be willing to take up the torch, so it's a no-go right now. —rc (t) 01:15, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
- I'd be willing to take control if all that is needed is a moderator. -AtionSong 01:23, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
- I'm afraid it would probably have to be an administrator who took over because of protected pages and whatnot, unless you allied yourself with an admin and co-moderated. —rc (t) 01:26, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
- Well, if the template was added to the main page again, I'd have access to all the necessary pages actually. -AtionSong 01:29, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
- I'm afraid it would probably have to be an administrator who took over because of protected pages and whatnot, unless you allied yourself with an admin and co-moderated. —rc (t) 01:26, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
- I'd be willing to take control if all that is needed is a moderator. -AtionSong 01:23, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
AtionSong, I thought about that question (i.e., why don't other people like it) quite a lot myself, after the last time it came up. I enjoy collaborations as much as anybody... apparently too much, since the people I collaborate with are usually accused of being me at some point or other. But no matter, I think there are other reasons why the colonizations didn't go over so well, some of which are fixable, some not:
- Humor is an art form, and people who come up with ideas often have a vision for those ideas, and they don't want just anybody coming along and messing with their vision. After a while, it just gets frustrating.
- Some people just like keeping all the credit for themselves. Sounds terrible, I know, but it takes all kinds, etc.
- The colonizations were too focused on creating articles about real, and often controversial, subjects in history, politics, and science. Since nothing was "made-up," people might have thought that if they got involved, they risked offending someone. It seemed to me that the "Mundane Objects" category got the most participation, though that may have just been perception on my part.
- I personally didn't like the word "colonization," since I thought it was too connotative, but apparently I was a minority of one on that point.
To cut to the chase, I wouldn't recommend bringing them back - because those first two issues really aren't fixable. Restructuring might help slightly with the third thing - for example, we could have people get together as "teams" in advance, and choose (or make up) their own topic. But if the only incentive is to have the results linked from the front page for a few weeks, I doubt that's enough to really make a go of it. Oh well... call me a negativist! c • > • cunwapquc? 02:51, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
- Teams in advance? Gooood Idea. Make it a competition! Of course I'm not talking about bringing the colonizations back, but making a PLS surprise for teams. 5 goups of 5 people each competing over the expanding of a stub (a different stub each group of course). Idea taken from Wikipedia:es:Wikipedia:Wikiconcurso. Disadvantage: we have to find to 25 people willing to involve, advantage: this one would be muc easier to judge than the PLS, only 5 works to read. --Rataube 08:03, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
- Problem with that would be that the result will be only one new article to Uncyclopedia, whilst the others might very well be main space worthy... The beauty of PLS was that the amount of great articles grew quite a bit. Having people compete for the same article doesn't seem very efficient... --⇔ Sir Mon€¥$ignSTFU F@H|NS|+S 08:07, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
- Not for the same article, each team with a different stub. Only five articles in total, not many I admit, but all of them collaborative works--Rataube 13:04, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
- Right - the idea wouldn't be to increase article-count so much as to encourage collaboration, which IMHO makes the whole site a lot more fun (even if it doesn't always produce better material). And that way you wouldn't have that objection where someone might suddenly show up out of nowhere, completely rework the whole thing, and then start some sort of revert war over it before the article's even finished. Then again, I guess that never actually happens, so I'm probably just being silly. c • > • cunwapquc? 03:39, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
- IMO, the reason that Imperial Colonizations are so ignored is because they never change. If everyone has already written the subject to death, of course it's going to get boring. If we change the Colonizations of the week, once every week. Maybe people will start editing them more. --
Kaizer the Bjorn takkun 
(nya nya) (1961 model!) Check out T61! 18:42, 5 May 2006 (UTC)
- IMO, the reason that Imperial Colonizations are so ignored is because they never change. If everyone has already written the subject to death, of course it's going to get boring. If we change the Colonizations of the week, once every week. Maybe people will start editing them more. --
- Right - the idea wouldn't be to increase article-count so much as to encourage collaboration, which IMHO makes the whole site a lot more fun (even if it doesn't always produce better material). And that way you wouldn't have that objection where someone might suddenly show up out of nowhere, completely rework the whole thing, and then start some sort of revert war over it before the article's even finished. Then again, I guess that never actually happens, so I'm probably just being silly. c • > • cunwapquc? 03:39, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
- Not for the same article, each team with a different stub. Only five articles in total, not many I admit, but all of them collaborative works--Rataube 13:04, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
- Problem with that would be that the result will be only one new article to Uncyclopedia, whilst the others might very well be main space worthy... The beauty of PLS was that the amount of great articles grew quite a bit. Having people compete for the same article doesn't seem very efficient... --⇔ Sir Mon€¥$ignSTFU F@H|NS|+S 08:07, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
You assume we never did. The reason it is no longer updated is because the project was unofficially shelved in December. Before that, it had been updated weekly as the name implies. But after a few weeks the articles got so little attention that I gave up on trying to prop it up and it ended there. ~Sir Rangeley GUN WotM UotM EGA +S (talk) 18:55, 5 May 2006 (UTC)