So it looks like Wikia has these blog things that users have been posting the characters they'd like to see in Smash 4. However, a user subpage may be a better alternative. Do you think the user blogs should be kept here? Post your thoughts below.
So it looks like Wikia has these blog things that users have been posting the characters they'd like to see in Smash 4. However, a user subpage may be a better alternative. Do you think the user blogs should be kept here? Post your thoughts below.
Because for new users unlike blogs there is no button to create a subpage and they might not know how to title it unlike blogs where it does it for you.
Plus blog's has a page filled with all of the blogs while subpages don't have something like that.
A new user's primary focus shouldn't be about creating as many subpages/blogs as possible anyways. It shouldn't be that difficult to create a subpage in the first place and could be easily added onto a help page.
The blog namespace doesn't function like an actual blog. It's called a blog probably because there's not a better name or something. It doesn't have any functions that can't be replicated by a user subpage, and the blogs are nothing more than extensions of the userpage so it doesn't become full of information. Categorizing the blogs/subpages as such isn't necessary in my opinion.
I'll also point out that all three blog posts that have been created can better be put into another namespace. DarKingdomHearts' and William Edwards' posts should both be on user subpages, and ZacharyHamilton's posts should be put in the forums.
SMASHFan: you say "That's not what this wiki is for", I would say "why not?". It feels as though you are focused on one vision of what this wiki is and should be, and that vision is the one of the previous community of this wiki.
I'm not saying that can't be the way the wiki decides to go (or stay) but it is definitely not the only way it can go.
Here are some examples of wikis which probably describe themselves as "encyclopedic", but who use blogs successfully:
Not all posts are great, and not all wikis want blogs. But they can be a useful and attractive addition to a wiki, something that can attract and interest both readers and contributors, hopefully encouraging them to explore the wiki further. Avatar Wiki's blogs get roughly 40.000 pageviews a month. That's a whole lot of people reading those pages!
I would love to see some consideration of blogs, and other possible features, on their own merits - and not on the basis of what has been done before, or on an assumption of what an encyclopedic wiki must be.
Right now, the page Toomai mentions should really be titled "Smashpedia:What SmashWiki was not". What Smashpedia is (and is not) is still a work in progress :)
If we're trying to work to complete a wiki here, we can't be so liberal with nonconstructive edits so that users here spend all of their time on them. Just because my view is similar to the old wiki's doesn't mean it's automatically bad either. The user content will still also be available even if the blogs are removed, in the user subpages. I'm not in favor of removing user content entirely. I'm also not in favor of removing blogs because the old community removed them or it's not what an encylopedia is about, I want them removed because they should go on a user subpage or forum instead.
Reviews of the game would easily fit onto a user subpage or the forums. Our news are already featured on a template and I don't see what's wrong with that. Speculation should also go on a user subpage. Custom hacked characters should be on a user subpage, as well as analysis of the game.
TheUltraman and I have been working on the policies, including what Smashpedia is not, and we think it's perfectly fine and that nothing should be removed.
"Just because my view is similar to the old wiki's doesn't mean it's automatically bad either."
I agree fully with that :)
My concern is to encourage you (all) to watch out for absolute thinking as you decide the future of the wiki ("this is the only way") and to evaluate ideas on their merits rather than on what was done in the past.
Thanks for listening to my semi-rant above ;)
Due to a lack of other commenters, lets keep blogs for a month and if no users use it for anything creative, we remove and replace it.