Talk:Community Central/Archive 4

(This page is primarily for discussing the Main Page. Questions and ideas about specific pages or subjects may get a quicker response, or at least be easier to find and edit, at Forum:Index. You can try a "Search" to see if your proposed subject-matter is already on a separate page.)


 * See Archive 1 for discussion between October 2004 and April 2005.
 * See Archive 2 for discussion between April 2005 and May 2006.


 * ''See Archive 3 for discussion between May 2006 and April 2007

Wikitube idea
I've had an idea of combining the functionality of a wiki with a video based application of youtube. Basically wikitube would work the same way as a wiki works, but instead of text, users would be able to edit videos and multimedia content. It would recuire an application that would make it very easy to cut, paste, rearange and connect videos or parts of videos to make up an altered version. A very simple, basic and easy to use online video editor that visitors vould be able to use to rearange and reshape to make a better presentation of the information available of those videos. A record would be available so that visitors would be able to go back and sift through the history in case someone made a mistake. It would probably have a database and an entry type system sort of like the one already in use by wikipedia. It would also be possible to add text and hight quality images in a not conspicuous place, like under the video screen, that users would be able to access for more information. The additional content could even be another video itself, so that users could shift to that video if they felt like taking the video in another direction. Basically it's a very ritch multimedia contect that anyone could edit with a bit of practice and would include all types of myltimedia like videos, pictures, and sound.

For example, visitors would be able to watch a video and see something on the screen like an ipod that would flicker when a mouse is pointed at it that would take the viewer to a new video or page about that item. Users would also be able to connect parts of videos together if they feel like a smooth transition could be made from one video to another. Basically it would be like watching television that would never end because the videos would always lead to somewhere else, but the user would be able influence the overal direction where the video goes.

In another example, the software would analyze the users mouse movement patterns to determine the users interest and preferences and accordingly decide which videos to play inserting articles and sounds at sounds at particular times to enrich the experience. In a later version the user would also be able to provide imput or feedback through the keyboard and possibly microphone / camera.

J'ai un question. . . ..
Here's my question:
 * Does it cost anything to start a new wikia?

I was considering one. . . . . (and please no tax jokes!!!!!)
 * Chef Clover from Wikipedia
 * No, it's free. Go to requests.wikia.com and make your request. Szoferka 15:36, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Can't log in
Hi, I'm Ham Solo. Today I tried logging in to Wikia as Ham Solo, it showed the login success page, but as soon as I clicked to go to another page, I was logged out. This is on every Wikia, even the central one. 24.77.42.48 14:06, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
 * I figured out the problem. The cookies for this site expired. To log in you must clear all cookies first then log in. It's very annoying, but it's the only way to log in. Is there any other solution? -- Ham Solo talk to the Ham! "You're all clear, kid!" 19:52, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
 * IT HAPPENED AGAIN!!!! Is there ANY solution?! It's so annoying that I can't log in.
 * Hi Ham Solo, a couple of other people have reported similar errors. The technical team will look into it, but for the moment clearing your cookies is the best solution.  Hopefully this will be fixed soon -- Sannse 14:09, 14 May 2007 (U

what hpend to the halo wiki
will ehat hapend


 * All seems fine there... http://halo.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page Are you having problems accessing the site? -- Sannse 08:04, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Images
All the images on the wikis hosted by Wikia have disappeared. What happened? -Xbolt 00:04, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Server crash more than likely. Phillip (talk) 00:09, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

OK. It's fixed now. Odd. -Xbolt 23:23, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Profit-sharing?
Hi,

I think I suggested this idea earlier, but since Wikia is trying to make money, and you want others to contribute reliably to it, why don't you give an additional incentive for people to contribute to a site such as yours which has ads? It didn't take much for me to modify the Mediawiki software to allow Google ads to be added which were credited a fixed percent of the time to the original author or most frequent contributor to a given wiki page (as well as allow links to be added to allow people to accept Paypal donations--perhaps as payback for answering questions, etc.).

Basically ads just get placed according to a "Google ads" field in one's preferences. (or "Paypal" field for Paypal donations). There is no security concern here since all that is needed is the Google id, and that is available in the HTML code of any page which includes ads--people don't enter their passwords or anything--just their account id so that they can get the credit. If you like the idea, maybe you can let my Google ad id, pub-9515729973633640, show up 1% of the time too!

If you want better quality, you can pay for it, and get the financial benefits yourself too... If companies like Starbucks give their employees a share of the profits, why not for such intellectual work as this...

thanks, Brett


 * That might not increase the quality of edits, but simply encourage people to create lots of of stub articles with bare minimal content (to make sure it doesn't get deleted, and still be able to claim as the "Original Author"), or it'd reward revert wars... Overall it seems to reward quantity, not quality edits. -Afker 06:05, 28 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Not without getting banned first... But, yeah, it'd probably be better to split it in some proportion between the top contributors rather than just one (less confrontational people might lose out otherwise too)... There could be a delay too... Or even an algorithm to see how frequently the person was reverted... A voting system could be added... But even without a voting system, I think it shouldn't be insurmountable if the incentives (rewards or punishments) are tweaked right... The threat of a ban should prevent any long-term contributors from abusing the system (otherwise, there goes all their ad credits), and short-term contributors could be restricted from being able to receive credit right away until such time as their contributions were accepted (or at least not rejected), etc.


 * And while there is no perfect system to detect quality (many professors feel their pressure to produce articles is one example), it is important to reward quantity and/or frequency in some measure, as long as it is not determined to be spam, etc. Brettz9 07:09, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
 * So now we get into the question of how to develop a system without pissing off people who think the rules are set against their style of (quality) contribution. Since obviously there's no perfect system, I personally fear the potential of pissing off those who feel being "disenfranchised" might be greater than the gain that will always be diluted by people gaming the system and being borderline almost-bannable.  Gaming.wikia has a "Top users" ranking system http://gaming.wikia.com/index.php?title=Special:TopUsers, and honestly, I have no clue how I scored that high, despite I trust the people who came up with the system honestly worked hard to try and make something fair.  This might also be why I'm not very trusting of some user-ranking system.
 * Well, can't the scoring mechanism evolve with time? I mean, it's not really going to damage anybody if they get less money than they expect for contributing to a wiki site which would really only be offering this as a side benefit (and could made clear as such in the introduction). As long as it is determined fairly transparently (or at least after consultation), I think it shouldn't be too big of a deal. Anyways, you can verify for yourself on any page you should be there that ads end up being attributed to you some of the time.
 * Hmm, well, I remain skeptical of the relative balance of the effects, as well as the potential for online drama it might induce (and I know some wikia communities that don't need any help in having drama). This is boiling down to speculative community and individual human behaviors, so we'll just probably have to agree to disagree. -Afker 13:56, 28 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Finally, this system is going to artificially encourage people to click on Google ads on their own articles just for the sake of increasing Wikia's revenue (as opposed to click on ads that actually have things that interest them). I believe this constitutes a violation of Google's adsense program agreement.  I'm not familiar with other advertisement services, but I wouldn't be surprised if they have a similar clause against artificial encouragement of clicking ads, and they probably don't pay as well as Google.  Feel free to correct me if my recollection of facts is  wrong.  (btw, I'm just a random wikia user, what I wrote above has nothing to do with wikia's official position on the matter, which I have absolutely no knowledge of).  -Afker 13:15, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Well, the idea here is not that Wikia would do any work to share the profits. It is simply that Wikia would sometimes display ads credited to Wikia and some percent of the time to a specific relevant user (though it is an interesting idea to take a more collective reward mechanism (or to add this to the individual compensation system) by just allowing random users to get ad credit (maybe with a minimum of accepted edits and after a delay so that spammers wouldn't be able to get credit) so that people are working for the common good of the system). Since the ads are tied to the user's account, and Google supposedly has a means of detecting which clicks are artificial, just as with any page that uses Google ads, it really should be the individual abuser who will get detected and punished rather than Wikia. Maybe Wikia would like to run this by Google to make sure, but I didn't see anything that would violate Google's agreement (or I wouldn't have added it to my own site back when--someone else is also using this approach on discussion forums I found out and has said they've had no trouble). There is a clause Google has about not tampering with the code that is created for the user to use, but inserting others' id's instead of one's own is not really tampering, I would say, as that is exactly how the code would be produced for that person--we only substitute the id (and I think the real intention was to avoid people concealing the ads, etc., anyways). Brettz9 13:32, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Ah, thanks for clarifying. During the course of discussion I misremembered the details of your idea. -Afker 13:56, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Weird
Okay, today, when I logged in it showed a popup instead of going to Special:Userlogin. Then it showed like a "tag image" link and it only showed a message saying "You can!" And when I went to unprotect something, it showed "&lt;protect-cascade&gt;" and sayed "infinite" in the box. I'm guessing that's a protection expiry, but it's just really weird. -- Ham Solo talk to the Ham! "You're all clear, kid!" 21:46, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

The stupid message bar won't dissapear!
I logged in today and got messages on the wii wiki. The message bar doesn't appear on the wii wiki, or any other wiki, it only appears on my wiki. It is very annoying. Can you help? PLEASE?! &mdash; G r e a t W h i t e T a l k ! 22:42, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
 * That's probably to do with the cache. Try reloading a few times or purging the page. ~Dantman(talk) tricks Jun 4, 2007 @ 23:32 (UTC)

This is very annoying
Today, after I logged in, the message bar would not disappear! No matter which wikia I log into, I have the annoying new message bar floating infront of my face! I've tried almost everything, restarting my computer, purging, logging out and logging back in, logging out, closing and reopening firefox and logging in and it's still in my face! Can you PLEASE help? 21:39, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
 * AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! IT'S STILL THERE!!!!!!!!!! IT'S BEEN A DAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! HEEEEEEEEELP!!!!!!!!! 21:40, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
 * By message bar, do you mean the site notice or something else? -Afker 23:35, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
 * No, the orange "You have new messages" bar. That is really annoying; I'm sorry that's happening! What happens when you click on the message? You don't have anything there? -- Danny (talk ) 23:44, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Oh. finally! It's about time! It disappeared today. Oh, when I click the link to see my new messages, it shows the messages but the bar does not disappear! I guess I just have to wait for the message bar to disappear, but it was Very annoying, so I hope this doesn't happen to me again. 23:09, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Next time that happens, try resetting your cache (usually Ctrl+F5). What probably happened is that the browser cached the version of the page with the message bar on it. --Skizzerz talk 16:06, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

the original main page
I've noticed that the main page has been completely redesigned. However, the navigation menu is no longer visible on the main page. Even the revision history of the main page is gone! What happened? Was this a change on the software side? --Ixfd64 21:45, 2 July 2007 (UTC)


 * I think it is. G .He (Talk!) 22:49, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Typo
Just to let you know, in the upper left box, it says "Join a Commmunity". – Smiddle / talk 15:29, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
 * I.e. you have the slate skin. – Smiddle / talk 15:32, 16 July 2007 (UTC)