User blog:Sci100/2014 - A Year of Change: Update 4



As you know, I released an important blog about five months ago concerning 2014, which I have dubbed "The Year of Change". This blog is to explain the changes that have happened and will happen, especially concerning interactions with being the change, BTFF Groups, wiki events, and some proposals. There will be a second update coming soon.

Changes that have Happened

 * 1) Community Guidelines, the Blog Policy, the Chat Policy, and the Upload Policy were updated.
 * 2) The Ultimate Guide to a New User was created.
 * 3) Featured Picture was officially closed down
 * 4) Featured Character was voted as the replacement for Featured Picture
 * 5) Page Creation Portal got admin support again.
 * 6) Visual Editor was tested for one week
 * 7) Template:Universe was expanded from the Main 52 to the Main 100.
 * 8) Category:Candidates for Deletion was emptied.
 * 9) Voting For Featured Character began on 2/1/14.
 * 10) The First Meeting of the Fanon Con Commitee occured on 2/8/14
 * 11) The Wiki's Navigation was updated.
 * 12) The Page Creation Portal was updated.
 * 13) Changes were Made to Fanon Con
 * 14) A Writing Contest was added
 * 15) Fanon Con became a weekend event, in different parts instead of one big blog.
 * 16) Creating a new welcome message
 * 17) A grand total of 559 Pages were categorized, including pages from Uncategorized Pages and Category:Pages requiring further categorization.
 * 18) A new “wiki holiday”, Ester Sunday, was created.
 * 19) Our policies were updated
 * 20) The Second Meeting of the Fanon Con Commitee occured on 5/17/14
 * 21) Fanon Con had a major update occur to it

Upcoming Changes

 * International Week will occur (see International Week section for more)
 * Retraining of Chat Moderators will be updated (unknown amount of time)
 * The Main Page will be Updated (unknown amount of time)
 * Making Wanted Pages (unknown amount of time).
 * And Possibly More....

Survey
Last time, I linked you to a survey asking you various questions about the 2014 - A Year of Change agenda. I got very interesting results.
 * 6 out of 9 people voted "Its okay, its updating things but its not super effective. "
 * 5 out of 9 people voted "Good (Most of the Administrators and Bureaucrats have enforced it)", however its worthy to point out that 2 out out of 8 people voted "Not So Good (only Sci has enforced it)"
 * 4 out of 6 people said the Wiki has "sorta" been a more peaceful, cooperative place since the beginning of 2014. 2 users voted No however.
 * 6 out of 8 users voted to update "Next Page", which I apologize guys, I meant Main Page, but as soon as someone voted, I couldn't fix it.
 * 4 out of 8 users answered, "How effective do you think 2014 - A Year of Change has been on helping new users? " by saying it was effective (each person voted on a different variation of effective). However, 3 more users said that its been harder to help new users. This is important.
 * 7 out of 9 users answered that they are happy or okay with Featured Character.

Noobs and Change
2 users believe that the Wiki has not been peaceful or cooperative. Now about that last sentence. I don't know who voted on that, and it could possibly be from a certain user, or maybe someone else there was conflict with. But even then... that's important. Its important when someone says "we are not making it peaceful to be on the wiki". Yes, he did do and say certain things that should not be allowed to happen. However, all of the drama that happened wasn't completely him. He didn't just join the wiki, and start causing trouble for no reason. For their to be a conflict, there has to be two sides. He was one side, and then we have the 2nd party, made up of users who know what they did or said to cause continual fighting between the two, resulting in an administrator decision. Drama only happens when two sides argue, bicker, and say/do things. So its not just his fault. Its the 2nd party's as well.

When it was Summer 2012, things were great. We had a ton of new users joining, we had just stopped two-three wars, it was peaceful, everything is epic, we had great movies and OV coming out, everyone was just ... enjoyable to be around. Then, Fall 2012 came and a user came and ruined that. If you joined in 2012, maybe 2013, or before, you know who I'm talking about. When we had to deal with that sock problem, we realized that he was a troll, that he wasn't going to listen to us. So, our response was to toughen up. We promoted new chat moderators and administrators, brought down the hammer of justice, and dealt with the problem. But in the chaos, we turned on new users and we made them Public Enemy #1. Remember, "Hi, welcome to BTFF. Are you YJ?"

That no longer occurs anymore, even after Spring 2013, when a second socking issue resulted in my promotion and the edit requirement, we still treated new users like they were trolls. We treated every new user as a possible threat until they proved themselves to not be a troll. We have to stop being so hard on these new users. Yes, there will be idiot noobs, who frustrate us. There will be annoying noobs, there will be even some troll noobs. But we need to not say "he's annoying me, he's a troll", like we have done for the past year (and you know that's exactly what we have done). There will be bad new users, but there are also good new users, and should be encouraging these users to get on chat, to become part of the community. We should encourage new users to join Fanon Con, to vote in Alien Fest and wiki affairs, to be more active.

I get that eventually, we can't be all "kind, happy, sincere, etc." But here's the thing. There was only 1 administrator trying to help them not get in trouble. As I recall, it seemed like everyone had the "Anti-Noob" bug going on. Maybe (and I'm saying MAYBE) if people didn't have that bug, then the drama wouldn't have happened. It could've, but at least we would have actually tried (and not just started hating him the second he joined the wiki because he's a noob). It could have gone down the same way it did, but again, we would have at least tried.

The 2014 - A Year of Change agenda is NOT just wiki change, like updating pages, navigation, themes, etc. The 2014 - A Year of Change is also intended for USER Change. To become a better user on Wikia, to help and serve those who need it. To be a guide for those who are lost, to not annoy the hell out of others, to not be so angry but to use the happy emoticon more often. In the immortal words of Michael Jackson...

"I'm looking at the Man in the Mirror, I'm asking him to change his ways. And no body could made it any clearer, if you want to make the world a better place, take a look at YOURSELF and make the CHANGE."

- Michael Jackson, in the song A Man in the Mirror

Or if you want to adapt it for us, "if you want to make BTFF a better place, take a look at YOURSELF and make the CHANGE.". My point is, there are going to be bad noobs, and we're going to be annoyed, to be frustrated. Some of these noobs are gonna go bad, but all noobs are not created equal. There are good noobs (like how most of us were once), and we have to make it our responsibility, our duty to find these good noobs, to guide them. They may not get it in the very beginning month, or even the first two months. But eventually, they may get it. We have to stop giving up on every single new user, and treating them like they're worthless and hated.

'Start being a better person towards New Users. They're People. Just because you have the internet doesn't mean you can be rude, act rude, unkind, harsh, etc. Please. Just do it. I'm asking nicely, I'm literally on my knees begging you to do it. Please. I still believe we should TRY and do our part to help the new users. We were all noobs once. '

Roles of Users with Rights
One other thing I need to point out. I've looked at some other wikis lately. On the Avatar: The Last Airbender Wiki, they have an entire page for Administrators. On this page, the administrators are listed by their full username, if they are active or not, and most important of them all... what they do on the wiki.

Here's what it looks like:



Look at it. The administrators are all active, and they all do something. PSUAvatar14 does maintenance. Thailog does images, themes, enforces policies. The 888th Avatar does styling, templates, messages, and uses a bot for tech questions. Water Spout is trying to have quality pages. And the other three are active admnistrators who basiclly do everything else. Each administrator does something important, each person has a duty towards its wiki.

Another example is Ben 10 Planet. Here, there is a list of administrators, activity, and their jobs.



Blaziken: enforces rulers, handles vandalism, makes sure content is grammatically correct. Coke, makes users aware of issues, (here's the important part), ALWAYS experimenting or suggesting new features or updates. Superbike10 is a design administrator, helps out with CSS, and finds wiki news. Tenbennyson is a content editor, and a counter-vandalism administrator. All of these administrators do something for the wiki, trying to make it better.

A third example is the YJ Wiki. as seen here.



I do have to take into account that when I wrote this, it was late May, meaning many were busy with Final Exams. I understand why there was/is some inactivity, I'm not mad about that. I know that even for some, they may be having a good social life outside of the wiki. But still, its kind of sad to know that there are really only two out of 6 administrators (and/or bureaucrats) that are active. Though now that Summer is here, hopefully we can all be more active. :D

Now, back to my main point. I feel like as administrators, we all should be doing something for the wiki besides being a rules enforcer, which we all are. I mean, isn't that one of the things an administrator is supposed to do? To make the community as good as possible? To keep a functioning, organized wiki out of chaos? We could have one administrator should be a New User adviser, another could help updated Featured Pages and do wiki-cleanup. A third administrator could try and solve user issues, and plan wiki events with me. A fourth administrator could think of new ways to promote good faith, and ways to make the wiki a better place to be on. I'm not saying that every administrator should have a certain job and can't do anything else because another administrator should be the one to do that, I'm saying that we should be doing things like they are. I feel like everyone can do something for this wiki. Wikis are places to add content and build on. So shouldn't we add content and build on it?

Role of None-Admins
Now, I was going to rant here as well, however after I wrote my original end to the rant, its like you read my minds. So instead of being angry, I'll only use my last paragraph.
 * Jack proposed a Minimum Word Count rule being added to the Blog Policy (which I agree with).
 * Ulti proposed updating the Page Creation Portal, in which I let him start as his "2014 - Year of Change project".
 * Ahmad proposed Featured Object.
 * Paper proposed a lot of things, like the new Fanon Con format.

Guys, I can keep making these blogs, and have you vote for like a week, and then a week afterwards change whatever I asked you to vote on. Then, our lives can keep going on, and we repeat. But if this keeps going on, the change isn't going to happen. You guys, as users of this wiki, have to start stepping up, and trying to start new things for 2014 - A Year of Change (of course, while asking me). You have to start trying wiki-cleanup contests, start trying to be the CHANGE. Because 1 person can't do it alone. Now, yes I can ask for help, but I shouldn't have to. You should be able to try, propose/improve things, and make a difference. Many are focusing on their projects and themselves, always chatting, while not doing a single thing to improve their wiki for others. BE THE CHANGE.

'' Thanks to a certain user who helped me decide to un-scrap this part. I won't list his name, but he knows who he is. ''

BTFF Groups
A Long Long Time Ago... in a wiki far far away.... there was a (former) administrator who proposed the idea of "BTFF Groups" in a blog in 2012. If you can think of former administrators who were administrators in 2012, you probably think of one user. That's right, I'm actually taking one of this guy's blogs, and I'm giving my own twist on it. This is the original blog.

Currently, we have two main groups, and 3 sub-groups in one of these two main groups. They are the User Rights Group (Crats, Admins, Chat Moderators) and the Fanon Con Committee. However, I have two new groups I would like to propose, as well as a special "one person" job.

Multiverse Trackers
By now, the BTFF Multiverse has expanded and grown. As of May 26th, there are 69 universes listed on there, with 1 Unknown universe. With more and more universes being added onto, and with the concept of the Multiverse getting more complex to understand, there should be a group that handles this. The Multiverse Trackers are these people.

The Trackers would make sure BTFF Multiverse, Earth (disambiguation), and Template:Universe are all up-to-date, by searching for universes they haven't found. So, they would look up "Earth-1", and check to see if there were any universes not on these lists. The Multiverse Trackers would most likely do a check-up every month, though they would be free to add a universe to these pages at any time.

If there's an issue with the Multiverse, or something unclear, the Multiverse Trackers would directly report to me (and/or possibly another user).

Janitors
The Janitors are in charge of cleaning-up the wiki. They add categories to uncategorized pages, create wanted pages, and work with administrators and the Multiverse Trackers to keep the wiki in shape. Janitors would also report vandalism and spam to administrators, and would work on various projects to keep the wiki organized. For example, moving all pages in the Heroes category to Hero category (some of the correct and incorrect categories are listed here).

User-Admin Relations Counselor
This is the "single user" group. One thing I've noticed is that administrators and the rest of the community don't always have the best relationship. So, hopefully to fix that, there's the User-Admin Relations Counselor. This user will have been chosen by both the community and the admins, and will serve as "the middle man". The Community state their grievances to this user, and this user reports them directly to an administrator.

This Counselor would have his own forum as well, and only non-administrators would be able to comment. It would be a admin-free zone.

So...

Now I'm done with the groups. This is one heck of a blog, isn't it?

Stolen Content
There's been a major issue lately. To explain why this is an issue, I have to tell a story.

So once upon a wiki, there was a user who created two shows. With these two shows, he had four characters, made a couple of pages for the characters, some pages, and then went inactive. Well December 2013, a dA user came to our wiki, created an account, removed the content from one of these pages, and renamed the page to STOLEN FROM ETHEMY ON DEVIANTART. Apparently, the characters and the pictures the creator of the show had used were originally created by this "Ethemy". They had the proof, so naturally I reverted the vandalism, deleted a stolen image that the user had mentioned, and then warned them that they can't "take justice into their own hands".

This is the reason why our policies state the following:

"If you are the owner of a picture, and someone else has used it, do not Vandalize, but rather please, ask the user to remove the photo/alien/character/etc. from their page and if within 2 days afterwards they haven't, contact an administrator about the issue. Calmly give the link to the page the picture is used, the picture used on the page, and a link to your original work posted before the picture was added to the wiki. An Admin should respond within 24 hours. To see how you should ask the user to take down the picture, click here.

Users who take "justice into their own hands" will be warned for vandalism, and users who continue to "take justice into their own hands" will be blocked for 2 days."

- The Rules

Then later on May 18th, the user returned and complained again that there was still images of the characters he owned. So after two users began discussing it, I came in, deleted the image, and said that both parties were at fault, but now that all images he had made were deleted, the issue was solved.

The End of May, the user returned once more and demanded that the character pages, the episodes they're in, and the series be deleted immediately as "the issue is NOT resolved". With no other choice, I deleted both series, and all pages associated with them.

So, the issue is: While we do have a policy against stolen pictures, we don't have a policy on Stolen Content.

Stolen Content is a very... "iffy" subject. I don't want to see any series have to get deleted on here. I don't want to have to have a bunch of dA users swarm the wiki and vandalize 50 pages because "its using their images", "their characters", they're "series name", etc.

I don't have a suggestion for any policies concerning Stolen Content, so if any of you want to suggest something then suggest it in the General Wiki Discussion area of the forums, message me, and I may highlight it.

So the main moral of this section of my blog:''' Please don't steal other people's stuff. If you really need to use someone's picture on dA, ask them on dA. If you gave credit to the original artist, and they don't want their picture being used, just take it down and apologize. Don't give me any more stress then I need. '''

Fanon Con
So as you may or may not know, Ahmad is the new host of Fanon Con! Ahmad is the 7th user to host Fanon Con, coming after Roads, Luigi, Bill Nye, Batman, Yveltal/Titan/NukeMaster Guy, and Red. Ahmad is also the first non-Chatmod, Administrator, or Bureaucrat user to host Fanon Con! Isn't that amazing?

Now as Paper talked about in the Fanon Con Thread, there's a new format for Fanon Con. The new addition to Fanon Con includes a presentation/Q&A for every user that signs up for Fanon Con. Each presentation is about 30-45 minutes on Chat.

Because its on chat, I'm going to need fellow administrators and chat moderators to be on chat during the presentations. During the presentations, it will not be a "free to chat whatever you want to talk about" chat, but will be a time for the presenter to discuss their show(s), and answer questions from the rest of Chat in an orderly fashion. So, I will need you admins and chat mods out there to monitor chat and make sure no one interrupts the presentations.

So, for example this is what should happen:

* User:Ahmad15 is having a presentation on his show, Ahmad 15 (Rebooted) on chat at the time of 8:00 - 8:30 PM EDT. It is currently 8:15 PM EDT. *

Ahmad15: As Season Two of the show continues, two new aliens will be introduced.

~ Randomboy1851 has joined Planet Chaturn ~

Randomboy1851: Sup Guys.

: Hi Random. Currently, as part of Fanon Con, we are having user presentations and Q&A's. Ahmad's presentation is occurring now. Because of this, we ask that you remain silence for the duration of the meeting until Q and A's begin. When Q and A begins, please state "I have a question", and wait for Ahmad to say "Yes @ Random". When he does, you may ask the question, and he will answer. Unless being addressed by Ahmad, please remain silent on main chat. If you would like to have a discussion with a user, please do so in a Private Message. The presentation lasts for 15 minutes, so when the 15 minutes are over you are free to discuss whatever you may like to do so again. When the next presentation begins, please remain quiet. Thank you.

Please respect this. If you cause trouble, you will be kicked twice, followed by a ban. If you are banned, you will be banned for the rest of Fanon Con.

International Week
I'm also pushing off International Week (again) until July 6th-12th (that way everyone is out of school, its summer, and we can all stay out of the sun and waste 20 hours of our lives on our computers! :D )

Updating Main Page
.... .... .... .... .... .... ....

'Still waiting for suggestions. Any suggestions... anyone....anyone? Bueller? Bueller? Bueller? ....

Anyway, I've been scratching my head, desperate of trying to think of a new front page to have. Nothing has come up yet. Now, I could just make a contest saying whoever wins will be able to become "Sci's #1 User" or some random stuff like that. But because I gave a rant on having you (yes YOU READER) be more active and involved in 2014 - A Year of Change, I won't. Now, I think it would be good if you guys made a contest, or did something like that, but I'm not saying you have to. You have to make that choice, only question is... should you make it or not? There is a right answer, but I'm not going to tell you.

5th Anniversary
As the 5th Anniversary comes closer and closer, I'm more excited then ever! There seems to be a lack of idea generation on its thread however. We have no time to lose. We need all the time we have in these precious one-two months of Summer (I'm not saying three because for many of us, at least 1/2 or more of June is still school, and I'm saying only one month because some people are so unlucky, they get out late June, and come back to School in August (which is about a month), right?).

Give ideas! Explain them! Be a part of the community discussions!

I'd also like to announce that in July, as part of "2014 - A Year of Change: Update 5", I will announce a bunch of events for the anniversary, and sign-ups will begin. Production begins anywhere between July-August (because we need to advantage of Summer and not wait until Fall when no one can do anything and we're screwed). So, ' ADD MORE IDEAS TO THE THREAD! '

Bellwood Newsletter
For the longest time, multiple users have tried to restart the newsletter. They've failed. Now, I know that besides myself, there is one user who does have a proposal for the future of a newsletter/show (and he shall not be named). But instead of proposing an idea, I have a question.

Should we even restart it?/Make a New Version/Update It? Yes, right now Yes, but later on in 2014 No

Jack's Proposal: Minimum Word Count
So recently, Jack posted a blog about having a minimum word count for blogs. Its a fact that there are a lot of blogs that don't have a lot of words. 2014 is the Year of Change, correct? Why not change how we deal with our blogs? Why not change our policy on blogs to include having a minimum word count, so every single blog has a good length and meaning to it.

So, lets take a vote. Should we have a minimum word count of at least 200 blogs?

Ahmad's Proposal: Featured Object
Ahmad recently introduced the idea of Featured Object. Featured Object would feature devices and items important to series. Examples would include: Omnitrixes, Ascalon, The Mirror of the Stars, the Sword of Rigon, etc. Vehicles would not be included though. Featured Object would be the 2nd new Featured this year, the 5th one on the Main Page, and it would be the 6th Feature introduced overall.

So:

Update 4.5 Coming Soon?
Well, that's a lot of topics, right? Trust me, I have a ton more. But I know you guys can't handle reading so much stuff, so I'm going to end the blog now. But trust me, you're still going to get some stuff. So... maybe I'll post 2014 - A Year of Change: Update 4.5. If I do, this will list my other topics, which include: Spoiler alert lol. If I don't make another one this month, I'll add them to my Update 5 blog. So vote below in the comments, and wait for the next Year of Change blog coming soon!

Personal Thanks
There are plenty of people who make a difference every day to the Wiki. These are just some of the users who I've noticed have made a big difference on the wiki, and have contributed making 2014 ... A Year of Change:


 * Ahmad, Paper, Ulti and Jack for being the change.

Voting ends on June 28th for all topics.

Watch Attack on Titan. Read Nick's New Fan Fiction (yes, he's writing Fan Fiction :O)

Enjoy Fanon Con, and thank you for reading this blog.