Template talk:Wikia Gaming Footer

Usage

 * (Feel free to improve this)
 * Placing   at the bottom of the main page of your wiki will display the footer.

Guidelines
Someone from the Gaming Wiki should really moderate this template page and put down some guidelines, but in absence of that, here are some guidelines I'll suggest:
 * All wikis
 * Should contain this template if they wish to be listed in it.
 * Should have a wordmark.
 * Upper section (Other gaming wikis...)
 * Should have at least 1,000 pages.
 * Should have a Community Messages filled out (MediaWiki:Community-corner).
 * Should have at least one active admin (sysop) in the last month.
 * Recent highlights
 * Should have at least one active admin (sysop) in the last 3 months.


 * Updated based on discussion below.

Does that seem fair? -- Fandyllic (talk &middot; contr) 31 Aug 2011 8:47 AM Pacific


 * I have one other obvious guideline to suggest:
 * All wikis


 * Should contain this template if they wish to be listed in it.
 * I think wiki activity is a better line to draw than the number of pages.
 * Why not use, say, 200 active users in the last 90 days as the divide? (see Special:Statistics). For one thing, this would move 7 more wikis to the lower group. I'd be happy to go through and check Special:Statistics on each wiki. -User452 16:19, August 31, 2011 (UTC)


 * I don't think using Community Messages should be a requirement, as some wikis use the News blog instead. I was unsure about whether this was acceptable, so I emailed Wikia Community Support Team, they could not tell me any benefit of using Community Messages over News blogs, and told me: "It's up to you whether you use news blogs or community messages to update your users.", so I think that's an unfair requirement, as some wikis just do things differently. -User452 22:50, September 1, 2011 (UTC)


 * Added suggestion about using template to be in list.
 * Okay I got rid of Community Messages. If Wikia can't even defend the need for it, then it is lame.
 * The active users tracking is just too hard to do. I picked 1000 pages, because the big wikis really should be in the upper area. Otherwise that area could have like 1000 wikis listed. We could change the threshold to 500. -- Fandyllic (talk &middot; contr) 2 Sep 2011 8:49 AM Pacific
 * It wouldn't need to be checked constantly, they would really only need to be verified when they're added. I'm sure the number of active users on a wiki doesn't change very much from month to month. Although I'd have no problem re-checking monthly if you feel it's necessary, since it only takes a few minutes.
 * One reason I suggest using the active users rather than page count is because The Age of Conan wiki is a "large" wiki, but for some reason has only had 25 active users in the past 90 days. I took a closer look at it and it appears one user created a couple of thousand stub pages in 2007. There's nothing stopping any smaller wiki from artificially inflating their page count in the same way, whereas it's slightly more difficult to fake the "Active Users" statistic.
 * Here's the list of active users, for reference:
 * 6111 Fallout
 * 1690 World of Warcraft
 * 1678 Assassin's Creed
 * 1623 League Of Legends
 * 1615 Halo
 * 1318 Grand Theft Auto
 * 1063 Sonic the Hedgehog
 * 972 TibiaWiki
 * 688 Pokemon
 * 521 Elder Scrolls
 * 307 Spore
 * 244 Fable
 * 225 Saints Row
 * 201 Touhou Project
 * 197 Street Fighter
 * 192 Mario
 * 175 Metroid
 * 158 Soul Calibur
 * 147 Metal Gear
 * 113 StarCraft
 * 63 AliceSoft
 * 62 Professor Layton
 * 48 Killzone
 * 48 Okami
 * 45 TYPE-MOON
 * 43 Ninja Gaiden
 * 40 Dead or Alive
 * 38 Lego Pirates the Video Game
 * 27 Donkey Kong
 * 25 Age of Conan
 * 13 Warhammer Online
 * 6 Bloodrayne
 * 5 Lord of the Rings Online
 * 1 Fatal Fury
 * -User452 11:32, September 4, 2011 (UTC)


 * I want to raise a point that some wikis by their nature/culture might have a larger active anon population than "typical". I know some people who already created accounts, but don't want to bother logging in just for the sake of editing something. There are others who don't want to create an online identity when they edit a wiki whose subject are on games mostly restricted to people who are 18 or older d-: This is not to say I think AliceSoftWiki would have 200 active people counting anons, just want to raise awareness in demographical differences (-:
 * Also, regarding "I'm sure the number of active users on a wiki doesn't change very much from month to month", on some wikis the number of active contributors/edits do tend to spike around new game/expansion/content releases. See edit count on http://alicesoft.wikia.com/index.php?title=Special:WikiStats&action=main&uselang=en We are 4 days into September, and we already have 1/3 the edit counts compared to the 31 days of August, many are from anon contributors providing information on a new game released Aug 26th. By late November I expect our number of edits and active contributers to drop way down again. -Afker All hail AliceSoft! 15:33, September 4, 2011 (UTC)
 * You're absolutely right, I thought that the active users list counted anons - it doesn't, which means there are more active editors on my wiki than I had previously thought! (btw, alicesoftwiki has 300, I checked to verify.) -User452 20:23, September 4, 2011 (UTC)
 * Some of this discussion makes me think active users isn't much better a metric than page counts. User activity appears to be much more cyclical, so checking only when you add the link doesn't seem so great. However, if more people throw their support toward an active users threshold, I'm not attached to page counts. I don't own the guidelines, I just want them to make sense and have most people (who care) agree they make sense. -- Fandyllic (talk &middot; contr) 16 Sep 2011 6:01 PM Pacific

Request
Is there a way to request to have your wiki on this template as I do not want to add without permisson--Tama63 Talk Twitter 17:15, June 19, 2011 (UTC)

Template Use
I think that all wikis listed on this Template should have this template on their main page. Would anyone mind if I added this any of the wikis which are missing it? -User452 21:50, June 19, 2011 (UTC)


 * Today I have added the template to several wikis which were missing it, and left messages with the wikis which are locked.


 * 1) Fable - present
 * 2) Fatal Fury - present
 * 3) Lord of the Rings Online - present
 * 4) Ninja Gaiden - present
 * 5) Professor Layton - present
 * 6) Saints Row - present
 * 7) Spore - present
 * 8) Dead or Alive - updated
 * 9) Touhou Project - updated
 * 10) Grand Theft Auto - outdated
 * 11) Warhammer Online - outdated
 * 12) Age of Conan - Added
 * 13) Bloodrayne - Added
 * 14) Killzone - Added
 * 15) Lego Pirates the Video Game - Added
 * 16) Metroid - added
 * 17) Okami - added
 * 18) Soul Calibur - added
 * 19) Mario - added
 * 20) StarCraft - added
 * 21) World of Warcraft - added
 * 22) Pokemon - added
 * 23) Assassin's Creed - missing
 * 24) Donkey Kong - missing
 * 25) Elder Scrolls - missing
 * 26) Fallout - missing
 * 27) Halo - missing
 * 28) Metal Gear - missing
 * 29) Sonic the Hedgehog - missing
 * 30) Street Fighter - missing
 * 31) Zelda - missing declined request to re-add the footer
 * 32) Guild Wars - opted out.
 * I think it's disgusting that these wikis are listed in the Wikia Gaming Footer, but do not carry the Wikia Gaming Footer on their wikis. -User452 04:45, August 31, 2011 (UTC)
 * Only 7 wikis listed in the footer used the current version of the footer, with another 4 using old versions. A total of 21 wikis did not have the footer at all, but I have now added the footer to 11 of those. Now, 18 wikis in total have the footer, 2 have opted out, and 8 wikis still do not have the footer. -User452 04:53, August 31, 2011 (UTC)
 * It's "disgusting", eh? Well, if you think that we're taking unfair advantage of the traffic without reciprocating or similar, I don't think anyone on Zeldapedia would mind being taken off of this. Of course, it does benefit Wikia for people to have access to a maximum amount of content so that they spend more time browsing and look at more advertisements, so they probably won't remove us even if we ask, but whatever. At least we won't be disgusting anymore! - Is drak  thül  05:33, August 31, 2011 (UTC)
 * As I said on your wiki, no-one is forcing you to be listed in the footer. You should have removed yourselves from the footer when you removed the footer from your wiki. -User452 05:35, August 31, 2011 (UTC)
 * I think it'd been nicer to ask, instead of assuming people would want it. Just a thought. Ariyen 17:37, August 31, 2011 (UTC)
 * Saying that I didn't "ask" implies that I gave you no choice. I said to you, "... you can add it by ...", which gives you a choice.
 * This footer is on all wikis by default. I did not add you to it, and it would be rude of me to remove you without giving you the choice to add it. Of course it's optional, and anyone can opt out. :) -User452 21:51, August 31, 2011 (UTC)
 * I think it'd been nicer to ask, instead of assuming people would want it. Just a thought. Ariyen 17:37, August 31, 2011 (UTC)
 * Saying that I didn't "ask" implies that I gave you no choice. I said to you, "... you can add it by ...", which gives you a choice.
 * This footer is on all wikis by default. I did not add you to it, and it would be rude of me to remove you without giving you the choice to add it. Of course it's optional, and anyone can opt out. :) -User452 21:51, August 31, 2011 (UTC)


 * I think that, maybe, if the footer gets too long, it should be scrollable. I also think that some people have really cluttered front pages, and that if they did want the link or to be linked to here, they could just link back to the gaming wiki someplace in their wiki (in a noticeable place), like the navigation bar at the top. I do think that kicking gaming wikis out of the loop is kind of harsh, even if they don't link back. It could be made so that any wiki that doesn't use the footer or link to the gaming wiki (or if they aren't able to reach the terms above) just can't get can't be listed as a highlight for the gaming wiki footer or as a highlight in the gaming wiki. --Imanie 03:57, September 1, 2011 (UTC)
 * "out of the loop" - The loop was very broken, I'm giving each of them a choice to come back into the loop, and now there are 11 wikis participating in the loop who weren't. :) -User452 22:50, September 1, 2011 (UTC)

Excuse me, anyone, I have some questions on adding a footer in the Resistance wiki. As I heard it can help to promote my wiki.--Drgyen 03:31, September 6, 2011 (UTC)
 * Please state your questions so those with answers can respond (-: -Afker All hail AliceSoft! 05:56, September 6, 2011 (UTC)

I have been keeping the list updated with irregularity over the past 2 years, and this week have updated it again. I've looked through the history of each wiki and included links to when the wikis have removed the footer, for convenient reference. -452 22:47, May 9, 2013 (UTC)

Customizing the wikis listed in the Footer
Greetings, I am the Bcrat of the AliceSoft Wiki and the Eushully Wiki. I want to explore options to customize the footer to optimize for the theme/audience of the wikis I am involved with. This is why I had my wikis use a customized list. I don't care if the other wikis I am linking to reciprocate (would be nice, but not a necessity), have word marks (having an ugly one is worse than not having one), or are even active (maybe one of our visitors would be interested in reviving an inactive related wiki). I am surfacing the wikis I think my visitors would have a higher interest in.

I propose an opt-in 3-line system (parallel to this completely centralized system), where my own wiki community gets to choose which wikis go on the first two lines, and we pull a third line from a standardized template on central, which would have at most ten wikis listed but can rotate its list for coverage. Some wikis might show up twice this way, but I think it is a good compromise for optimal user experience. -Afker All hail AliceSoft! 03:54, September 4, 2011 (UTC)
 * That's a good idea, perhaps a simpler idea would just to be add a parameter to this template where additional wikis could be added. I've gone ahead and put that parameter in, since it will make no difference to the current usage of no parameters.
 * will add a third heading "Related Wikis", with whatever you add as the parameter underneath. Will that work for you? -User452 10:53, September 4, 2011 (UTC)
 * Oh, the template is cached, so the new template parameter probably won't work everywhere until tomorrow. I verified that it's working in the Sandbox here, so you can test it out yourself there if you like. -User452 10:56, September 4, 2011 (UTC)
 * Ah. Nevermind, although I tested it locally in the Sandbox, interwiki template transclusion has several important, and poorly documented, differences to normal template transclusion. Amongst other things, parameters aren't possible, so your solution is the best way for a wiki which wants to use keep up to date to add additional wikis to the standard list. I suggest that this template be changed to work in the same way, have it transclude the list stored here, that way they two lists don't need to be updated separately. -User452 12:54, September 4, 2011 (UTC)
 * Hmm, like a centralized "Highlights" list? Sounds great! (-: -Afker All hail AliceSoft! 14:40, September 4, 2011 (UTC)
 * BTW, after looking at what you did in the sandbox, I think what I had in mind was kind of the opposite in presentation (though same in technical execution). I was thinking that my wiki's local footer would present the related wikis first, then in the lower section transclude a list from here that isn't too long (ideally within 10 wikis) which can rotate periodically. I think there are MediaWiki stuff that can handle auto-rotation based on day or week, so as long as the interwiki transclusion cache isn't super permanently static, it might not require high human-maintenance. -Afker All hail AliceSoft! 15:16, September 4, 2011 (UTC)
 * Following up, I think the best way to implement the randomization would be via the Random extension. However this would require Wikia to add the extension to all wikis using the footer.  Other implementations are possible, but the adding/removing wikis for the list would involve editing a template with much messier format. -Afker All hail AliceSoft! 05:49, September 25, 2011 (UTC)

Separate discussion happening
A separate discussion on revamping the footer has been started by Sxerks over on Gaming.wikia. -Afker All hail AliceSoft! 05:07, September 25, 2011 (UTC)

A template in the template
I suggest doing another template, this one only having the list of gaming wikis, without a box. This temlplate would have it, and if any wiki wants to change the footer style, but being updated, they only have to add the template with the list of wikis in a box. 09:45, June 22, 2012 (UTC)

Footer Blanking
For the record, I object with the blanking of this footer, for 3 main reasons: it was a community-maintained footer, it was not clear that it was proposed for removal, and there are hundreds of wikis transcluding this footer. If Wikia Staff had posted on this talk page to say "Thanks to the 70+ users who have contributed and maintained this footer over the past 7 years, we're sorry that Wikia Staff have not been maintaining it ourselves, but we would like to take responsibility for this and replace this footer with ones that we will maintain. As such, this footer will be removed from all wikis listed in the footer, then blanked and locked. All wikis will have the option of switching to the new footer, or having no footer, but under no circumstances can they keep the existing footer or any derivatives.  Thanks for using Wikia!" then it would at least have been clear what was happening. Since this community-maintained footer has now been locked due to the technicality that Wikia Staff created it, I propose the creation of a Community Gaming Footer, to be maintained by the community exactly as this one was. The page on gameshub states "Footers created by users will not be touched at this time.", so I assume we're still allowed to create our own footers. I am not interested in maintaining it, but I am available to assist anyone who is. -452 23:59, October 2, 2015 (UTC)
 * 1) I have put a lot of time into helping to maintain this footer over the last 4 years, and I am insulted that Wikia Staff have removed a community-maintained footer without saying anything on the talk page. It is common practice, and common courtesy, to propose a major change on the talk page, or at least to post a link to a discussion, so that all interested parties have notice and an opportunity to give their feedback.
 * 2) Until the action was taken, I had no idea that this footer would be removed from all wikis displayed in it and the footer blanked - this was never explicitly stated anywhere. The page on gameshub.wikia states that only footers that were "maintained by Wikia staff" were "slated for removal", but the history of this template clearly shows that Wikia Staff were not the ones maintaining it, so I had no reason to think that that applied to this footer. I was aware that there are other footers which were protected from edits, and naturally assumed that this only applied to those footers, as those footers were not community-maintained. Since the page on gameshub.wikia doesn't have a comments section, there was no community discussion regarding this change - only isolated discussions on wikis which were contacted with an offer to join the new footer.
 * 3) Since this footer is present on many wikis which were not in the footer, there are now hundreds of wikis which now display the "Footer retired" message instead of the previous footer, unfairly impacting wikis who were happy with the old footer and have no interest in the new footers. The new footer is displayed on far fewer wikis than the old footer, so given the choice between old and new, I chose to keep the old footer - people choosing to keep the old footer is probably why it is not permitted to remain as an option.