Forum:I'm meeting our Overlords

Forums: Index > Village Dump > I'm meeting our Overlords

Note: This topic has been unedited for 6338 days. It is considered archived - the discussion is over.

On August 2nd in Taiwan, just before Wikimania. We are going to discuss this topics:

• users' common problems
• what new features they need most
• what existing features need improvements
• which are the most relevant competing services in each user's country
• plus anything else that comes up!

Anything you would like me to express on behalf of uncyc?---Asteroid B612 (aka Rataube) - Ñ 13:39, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm pretty happy with things as they are here, except for the fact that I've been very uncreative lately, but I don't think they can help me with that, lol. --Hrodulf 14:33, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Feedback. I want feedback. Wikis are tools for amateur, collaborative writing. That's what a Wiki is. Amateur writers in particular need feedback from readers in order to know what works and what doesn't. Yeah, we've got Pee Review and every page has a Talk page, but 90% of readers would rather break their own incisors out with a ballpeen hammer than buckle down and write prose. (It's not their fault -- they're readers and not writers!) I would like a trio of checkboxes at the top or bottom of the page: [ ]I Like It! [ ]I Dunno! [ ]I Hate It! ...and a scorekeeping mechanism to track the feedback. As it currently stands the Wiki tutorial model is more like a writers' group than a real readership-driven or market-driven editorial model: the people who critique articles and give guidance are virtually always other amateur writers. In the real world, magazine editors are professionals whose job entails evaluating what will sell the publication -- ie, what the readers want to read. Please don't let me be misunderstood: you Uncylopedians are smart, perceptive, concise, and sarcastic -- everything one would want in the ideal writers' group. But I want feedback from a wider spectrum. ----OEJ 17:37, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

I agree with feedback. I'd like a rating system — just a really basic one, an up button and a down button, and a percentage in the middle that says how many users liked it. It would be a simple way to get feedback from a wider base of people without them having to specifically comment on it, because lots of people can have an opinion yet not be bothered enough to comment it. – Sir Skullthumper, MD (criticize • writings • SU&W) 23:59 Dec 20, 2024 18:00, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Hmm... a rating system, huh? That's a good idea. I wonder why we hadn't thought of that before...--<<>> 20:21, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Ah. Never mind. Ignore me. I'm having one of those noob moments. – Sir Skullthumper, MD (criticize • writings • SU&W) 23:59 Dec 20, 2024 20:24, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

The problem with the rating system we tried before was that it sucked (arrow up or down, with no negatives? Madness!). An Amazon.com-style system would work much better, IMO (with a rating out of five stars and the number of people who voted). Sir Modusoperandi ^Boinc! 21:00, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

I would very much like feedback from a wider audience. Heck, I even took one of my articles to show our creative writing group (the one closest to featurehood, naturally). It's nice to know what we're doing at least translates to funny outside of our community (which it did, at least in that case). A measure of total number of good and bad votes would be good, too. The one proviso is I'm not sure it's going to tell us anything we don't know - from what I saw on the limited trial of the old system, the old classics like AAAAAAAAA! got heavily voted up, and everything else hung about in a statistically insignificant grey area (maths geek!) because people can't be bothered to vote on everything they read. But I'm totally for doing it anyway, because it's not likely to do any harm unless people start assuming it means something. -- (but) Untrue  Whhhy?Whut?How? *Back from the dead* 22:57, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

That might suggest to me that perhaps people weren't FINDING the other articles if they were wallowing in a stagnant pool of grey unvoteyness. That might offer us ways to enhance our linking and categorization if we had some kind of indication that ppl weren't voting on a page. I for one would love some sort of indication that ppl were finding my articles (a la hitcount but not so crude) even if it didn't show any kind of enjoyment rating. It would be a start. ~ Dame Ceridwyn ~ talk DUN VoNSE arc2.0 02:47, 31 July 2007

Yeah, I know the old system was a little sucky. A lot sucky. Wouldn't it be great if we had an editor like the one Tim Cahill has at Outside Magazine, though? Somebody who'd say That ain't the quality we want. Cut it from 5000 words to 2000 words, lose the part about Zelda, and have it on my desk tomorrow morning so I can mark it up. Someone to move us to the next level of professionalism. A simple rating system really won't get us there. What will? ----OEJ 00:20, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

For one thing, they could improve the coffee around here. This stuff tastes like weasel poo. Even better, we could promise fame and notoriety to writers who produce good stuff. We could make a little HTML Badge of Shame for award-winners and feature-writers to put on their websites, blogs, and signatures; that way Uncyc looks less like a huge monstrosity of arcane adminship and brainwashed humor cultists, and more like a friendly place that impressionable people (i.e. typical internet users) will want to be a part of. Marketing, people, marketing! --The Acceptable  Cainad  (Fnord) 04:26, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

• Money. That's our common problem. I want a raise. -- Brigadier General Sir Zombiebaron 20:30, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

/me prepares the lifting gear. -- (but) Untrue  Whhhy?Whut?How? *Back from the dead* 22:57, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Or possibly one of those occult spells to raise the dead. Ahahaha. -- (but) Untrue  Whhhy?Whut?How? *Back from the dead* 00:23, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

That was one of the better laughs I've had all day. I think if he was just User:Baron afterwards, he'd lose all his special powers. Sir Famine, Gun ♣ Petition » 07/31 02:26

Ask them if we can get SAVINGS!!!!!!! -- » Sir Savethemooses Grand Commanding Officer ... holla atcha boy» 05:09, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

I hate to break it to you, Mooses, but Uncyclopedia is actually a free service. Those "membership dues" are actually just Chronarion messing with your head. --The Acceptable  Cainad  (Fnord) 06:18, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

And I gave him all of my monkeys! Alas, what a fool I am! --Lord Fluffy who rains fire from the heavens 14:34, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

• Three points; one I agree with Modusoperandi's idea of an Amazon inspired rating system. Two; Ceridwyn's point about people not finding the articles gave me an idea. I dont know whether it'd be possible but how about automatic linkage to other pages? It'd remove the problem of lazy writers leaving other people to like their pages for them. Three; maybe a spellchecker and grammar checker like you get on Programs like Word. -- (Bonner) (Talk). 17:45, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Another point after seeing another forum; how about something (that works) to automate the placing of the featured article on the main page, because from what i've seen people are getting pretty bored at updating it every night. we could just Queue up a load of them and leave it to do its stuff -- (Bonner) (Talk). 18:56, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Automatic linkage might be nice for a set of keywords -- if "horse" is in the keyword list then the first time the word "horse" appears in an article is automatically horse. Interestingly, Firefox has a decent spellcheck that that works inside text-entry boxes like the one I'm typing in now. It thinks that "spellcheck" should be two wards, apparently. It also does not know how to spell Ceridwyn. ----OEJ 23:50, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

This site seems to prefer Ceridwen or variants thereof.

If we're talking about a revamped rating system, AnimeNewsNetwork (yes, I am an otaku, but I ADMIT IT!) has an excellent rating system that automagically takes into account the number of votes compared to other articles. It's highly accurate. I think it'd work well over here, too, if we ever decided to re-implement a rating system. — Sir Wehp! (t!) (c!) — 05:12, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

• Ask them if there is an anti-noob ray, or conversely, a way to neuter most people on the internet, through the internet. --Nytrospawn 18:49, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

• Have you seen the new skin at wikia - it seems to have everything you want... voting, top articles, better search suggest tools, etc. Have the overlords ever thought of switching the skin to the new one wikia's been working on? Just curious. Gil 06:40, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

• Haven't we had this conversation before? Something about not looking like Wikipedia making the whole parody idea pointless? Or was that with someone else?--<<>> 12:43, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

• If you have had this discussion, evidently it didn't do any good... compare http://necyklopedia.wikia.com/wiki/Hlavná_stránka to http://desciclopedia.ws/wiki/Wikipédia and you'll see a difference. Which looks more like Wikipédia? Ummm... --BBBBBBBBB! 13:31, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

well most of that is because necyklopedia hasn't added the book background. The rest is the right sidebar, not a massive thing IMO -- sannse<staff/> (talk) 19:28, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Well apart from the fact that it would defeat our purpose if we didn't look anything like wikipedia, it's possible to do all those things in the current skin. • Spang • ☃ • talk • 03:02, 03 Aug 2007

JohnQ assured me they are not changing our skin becouse they understand our need to look like wikipedia. He is also well aware of our "dont change anything without telling us or we will kill you" approach. However, he also explained us that working out features for monobook is a pain in the ass and that's one of the main reasons they are switching to new skins. So I guess that means that if we stick to monobook (I agree we should) we'll need to wait much longer to see these kind of improvements.---Asteroid B612 (aka Rataube) - Ñ 02:53, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

I hear ya. Just pointing out that we're creating tons of new functionality on skins you don't want, which seemed like a shame. We're also spending a lot of money updating uncyc functionality and I hate the wasted effort of doing things twice... so I ask dumb questions like "wassup with your issues with the new skin". That said, U da boss, We da beatches. I just think you miss out on things by wanting to copy wikipedia instead of being what you are - a hilarious and offensive parody that we love and read every day. Gil 10:05, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Actually, we're not here to copy Wikipedia. We're here to parody it, and maybe cut it down a notch or two at times when Wikipedians start taking themselves too seriously. As such, we do imitate Wikipedian formatting and conventions for satirical purposes. --Carlb 12:15, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

I completely agree Carlb, it is a great parody and damn funny. Gil 16:25, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Really, if you want to make your job easier, just convince Wikipedia to switch to the easiest-to-maintain, most feature-filled skin, and we'll be right behind. You've got that sort of pull, right? Sir Famine, Gun ♣ Petition » 08/4 18:28

Sweet! I'll let the wikimedia board know you're a fan of our new skin. I'm at wikimania right now. Then I'm going to replace the wikipedia logo with our uncyc logo as we overlords go on our merry way of F-ing up the whole universe! Gil 18:33, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

That actually sounds like a plan to me. You've got my support in your endeavor!--<<>> 19:23, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

You do realize that in some places, what you're planning only makes the world right, right? Sir Famine, Gun ♣ Petition » 08/5 01:21

Sannnse thinks it might be possible to use the new skins but make the interface look like monobook. That might be easier than upgrading monobook itself. I hope she's right. Gil's idea sounds even better though.---Asteroid B612 (aka Rataube) - Ñ 02:45, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

Editing late to clarify this... I'm not sure if it can be make /just/ like monobook, what I was thinking of was moving the sidebar from right to left (if/when that's possible), adding the background, and making other changes that give the impression of Wikipedianess. I'm not sure how well it would work out, but it seems something to explore in the future -- sannse<staff/> (talk) 19:28, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Search Functions

Something that has always bothered me about Wikis is the amazingly awful search function capabilities. Misspellings, while easily handled and corrected in other engines, offer the searcher very few options. I've always found it very hard to work with, and my parents? Forget about it. They've been trying to read my articles for months!

If I had one issue to raise to the higher-ups, that'd be my choice. I don't really need this ratings thing. ;) --THINKER 00:14, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Oh yeah - ditto, definitely. I'd welcome something more along the lines of an accurate search for an exact text string, so I can include wikicode and suchlike. But I'd settle for any improvements at all. -- (but) Untrue  Whhhy?Whut?How? *Back from the dead* 00:19, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Or, if you can't get it improved, rename it UnSearch. Sir Modusoperandi ^Boinc! 05:25, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

UnCommons

File:Singe savant du mois.png

This should display a cup filled with bananas.

Why are we unable to access a common image repository? Wikipédia has commons.wikimedia.org that works from all of the languages there but there's no commons.uncyclopedia.org here on en:? --205.150.76.14 13:51, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Very good question.--<<>> 14:46, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Because it's not that simple... Image hosting is different from using images within an article, fair use doesn't apply. So then we are limited to free images, and have to try and keep things tidy there... lots of work. The way we tried on Memory Alpha was to allow any version to use images from the English version. But that wasn't popular because of issues of file names and accidental deletions and so on -- sannse<staff/> (talk) 19:28, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Using fallback to en: makes no sense, given the mess of incompatible licensing that has been created across the various Uncyclopedias. We already seem to be at the point where many or most existing translations of English-language Uncyclopedia articles to other Wikia are in direct violation of the original authors' copyright - if anything, the situation with images may be slightly more straightforward as most of our images are tagged with templates to indicate their copywrong status.

And yes, using en: instead of a separate commons: does carry the risk of an image being deleted as unused here while still in use elsewhere. I wouldn't recommend that approach. Most of these issues are nothing new, Wikipedia would also have had to deal with keeping fair-use images out of commons, using 'bots to move existing public domain media to an independent commons wiki and all related questions. --Carlb 11:37, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I agree that using the English version won't work. It was something we tried and, as I said, it wasn't popular. On fair use images... the situation with Wikipedia is different, they can keep out all fair use images from commons, but almost nothing would be left if we did that. And what is fair use in an article may not be in a separate image repository - exactly the reason I like to spend a lump of my free time removing unused images. I'm no lawyer of course, but IMO the best solution is for each version to have it's own images, copying over any that will be useful to them... really not a big effort -- sannse<staff/> (talk) 12:37, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Case sensitive hyperlinks

Could we try to get interlinks which are not case sensitive? eg - If I write canadians in small letters I get the actual Canadians article without bothering to created a redirect page. ~ 12:29, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

OK, I'm freaking out now, it actually just worked. I am going to leave my computer now and call the exorcist. ~ 12:30, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Technically, "...exorcist, eh.". Sir Modusoperandi ^Boinc! 12:39, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes, the whole "case-sensitivity" thing is annoying (try remembering which Do not click any links to use sometime, for instance), but it's wikipedia's problem, too, so that's not terribly high on my wish list.--<<>> 16:06, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree, case is too sensitive. It's time for case to grow up and get a sense of humor just like everyone else on this site. P.M., WotM, & GUN, Sir Led Balloon (Tick Tock) (Contribs) 23:03, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

TRY TELLING THAT TO PEOPLE WHO KILL PEOPLE WHO FORGET TO TURN OFF CAPS LOCK. -- (but) Untrue  Whhhy?Whut?How? *Back from the dead* 00:09, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

"People. People who kill...people. Are the luckiest people in...the world." Sir Modusoperandi ^Boinc! 02:13, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

Subtle, yet blatant. Modusoperandi gets the "Mildly Obscure, But Obvious To Those Who Pay Close Attention" References Award. --The Acceptable  Cainad  (Fnord) 02:18, 5 August 2007 (UTC)