Board Thread:News and Announcements/@comment-26149161-20170523205516/@comment-30079501-20170524181049

Sinthorion wrote: Reddieeddie wrote:

AlteOgre wrote: It's not that hard to ensure all server pages meet specific requirements. At some point last year, I just added infoboxes to any server page I could find and encouraged any owner to create them when they popped up. A matter of continued attention, not much effort, but just continuous, from 2-3 moderators, will do the trick.

Most 'problematic' (annoying) may be the fact that there are quite a few servers on an annual basis that are announced, pages are created with no full info, then server is launched or not, and disbanded shortly after, or list and page info is never updated. Such servers are now spotted (most of them by MilkMC these days) by moderators and removed after some time. We do have a rather standardised method on how to deal with those. IK that I'm not staff, but just wanted to point something out here. I recently created the new Drums of War server page for the owner. He was quite grateful, as he'd been (in his own words) "stressing out about doing that because I've never set [a wiki page] up before."

I'd be willing to bet he's not the only server owner out there who feels this way. The process of setting up and managing a server is certainly time-consuming. And many server owners have little to no experience with the wiki. So when a server owner does create a page, they often lack the time and/or knowledge to put together an effective page. And simply moving these pages to a different wiki isn't going to solve that, it just means that different people will have to clean up the mess.

This isn't to say that some owners could put more effort into it; basic things like good grammar should at least be used. But perhaps, if there was a way to make the process of creating these pages simpler, it would mean fewer and easier clean-up jobs. Would it help to create some sort of "server template page", that new server pages could follow? Is there some other way to make it simpler? Just wanted to throw that out there. What is the difficulty in creating an article? There is no restriction on the format for server articles, so it's just like writing a Word document (if you use WYSIWYG editor).

If there's no format, then how is it decided that an article is lackluster? Yes, they still have to comply with the wiki style guide. But that only covers minor things like grammar. There may officially be no format, but some of the comments above by Griev, Alte, and Ithilion seem to imply that some more in-depth format should be followed. Heck, this decision itself says that many server pages aren't up to par, which is why they're being removed to another wiki. If there is no format, then how was it decided that these articles were sub-standard?

Anyways, creating an article shouldn't be particularly difficult. But to create one that actually fits these standards isn't easy, especially if the owner has no previous experience editing the wiki. It's still simple enough that most people could do it, but the amount of time required for it may not be seen as worth it. Looking at the article for the SA server (which is quite thorough and complete), I'm guessing it took a fair amount of time and wiki know-how to do it.

This isn't to say it's a monumental task. It's simple enough once you know how to do it. But I think it's unfair to expect server articles to be perfect, without some amount of time and effort.