Lit Wookieepedia, the Star Wars wiki

The point isn't about dissing articles. I like any kind of article on Wookieepedia. It's the people running it I'm more worried about. There seems to be an insular subculture growing there, especially among admins and mods and it's deterimental to people who want to contribute, but feel it's too much hassle getting through their system. The fact that they delete canon information and keep fanon for extended periods of time without snipping it, just adds to the problem.

 

I don't have a problem with the minor articles either. Being able to look up a random Alderaanian wine for fanfiction is helpful.

The point, as Tzizvvt says, is that if a trivial article about an Endorian frog is permissible (as opposed to the Mass Effect wiki, where it's unlikely that would be kept), then it sets a precedent that allows practically everything, i.e. that the Wookiee is meant to be a thorough account of everything we know of that galaxy far, far away.

But then you get examples like Tzizvvt where something he sighted in TCW doesn't matter? Either frogs and muffins matter or they don't.

 

Wookieepedia has an article on teeth but not on hair or skin? Madness.

 

They haven't moved on to hair or skin yet becuase the teeth is still a stub.

 

It might be because I'm biased towards one type of article (starships, military stuff etc.) but these four were ships not only used within the context of the story (the ship that gets blown up in an attempt to kill Asajj, the ship that does it and has a named character commanding, two types of ships that are featured in a section of the plot in the book Deceived etc.). Everything was named with the conjecture tag, to fit the criteria of a thing without a proper name.

Other times, I've found my posts and votes stricken from a forum vote due to being a "single-issue voter", even when the issues were completely different (something dealing with a person vs. something dealing with a vehicle, how are those the same thing?)

 

No worries, TrakNar -- you were never part of the "edit-Nazi" clique I was complaining about. You, like 4dot and Eyrezer, were folks that seemed to take a lighthearted stance of it all and actually enjoyed what you were doing. You weren't using Wookieepedia for a power trip. A stroll through some of the "talk" sections on the articles will quickly show who's indulging themselves of the latter.

Exactly. Eyrezer, it's the folks like you that set Wookieepedia apart from most other Wikis -- you're actually taking the time to fill in all the little gaps in the SW universe, and believe me, there's at least one person here that appreciates finding articles like "unidentified fruit tree on Biitu." It shows that someone cares. But there are others that started ruling the site with an iron fist a few years back, and haven't let up since. Those ones aren't just there for the fun of it anymore. They clearly view Wookieepedia as their own domain.

 

Tziz,

The Wookieepedia does suffer from alot of the symptoms you mention, but the key is patience. Like you, I have created alot of warship articles (as well as the Gar Stazi article and many Legacy Galactic Alliance related articles), and I learned that it takes ALOT of patience when dealing with some of the mods. Overall, I do think that there is a good bunch of folks there, but they can be a bit stuck in their ways and less than welcoming to newcomers.

My advice would be to strike up a dialouge with some of the mods and regular posters and ask they for advice when creating new articles. Asking fellow Wookieepedians to review your articles and offer advice is a sure way join the community and avoid future problems.

--Adm. Nick

 

Thing is, I don't want to be part of the community. I just want to make and edit articles. The site is interesting, not the people working there. I say that with a bit of apprehension, since it's technically not a workplace, but a hobby site. Problem is, there's a few people there who treat it as the former, not the latter. Once I had an edit reverted by an admin, went to the forum to ask why it was deleted (since it had to do with a in-universe definition or something and questions about such things could be posted on the specific board). In comes the same admin and deletes my thread for being "rubbish". Not exactly non-partisan.

On top of that, it's not even consistent. Sometimes I've created an article similar to what I described above. Nothing happens. Sometimes they delete it. There's no guideline for how they operate and when something gets snipped.

 

The question then is why they wont welcome newcomers short of making a mass of deletions? If your new and constructing a canon article why should you be treated any differently than someone who has been there for years? And further, why should people accept such a blatant bias?

 

For reasons best exemplified by the posts in the last few pages of this thread, I don't think it's necessarily always a good thing that authors are using Wookiepedia as a reference. I've recently begun to suspect that an incongruity between a certain two books and their takes on Jedi philosophy could be explained by one of the authors, a professed Wookiepedia user, having been influenced by edits made by apparent revisionists. If authors want to use Wookiepedia as a reliable source for dates, timelines, correct spelling of names, or minutiae, that's fine, but they should also be aware of the tendency that blackmyron pointed out.

 

I don't disagree with you, Robimus. However, the same thing could be said of the JC forums. I have seen maybe new posters ridiculed or ignored when they first come here.

At the end of the day, established fansites/communities are unfortuantely somewhat hostile to newcomers. IMO, the best way to overcome that is for us all to go out of our way to make people feel welcome AND choose to work with people who are initially hostile. In my experiences on the Wook, some mods or posters who were initially quite critical about one of my articles ended up being great guys to work with once we spent some time discussing our differences.

Anyways, that is just my experience. Feel free to ignore the ramblings of this old admiral.

--Adm. Nick

 

This is way to true. I have named things in Star Wars canon by naming locations on the Wook. Authors see the articles and then use the titles in their novels or guidebooks. Tranquillity Spire, the First Knowledge quarter, the Jedi trials Chamber of the Jedi Temple, were all either my own creation or, in the instance of the first one, an ambiguous location name.

I love Wookieepedia. Its the best. But like many others I find that creativity and the whole experience can be stifled and ruined by long time users that take everything a bit too seriously. While of course my track record hasn't been the most clean on the Wook, most of my contributions are positive, but could always use revision or reformatting. But instead of improving upon my contributions, more times then not they are compltely removed. I don't know, nothing that happens on Wookieepedia should ever result in some of the arguements I have seen or been involved in. All users just need to lighten up and have fun editing; not beating each other over the head with useless rules and regulations

 

Poor Lucas doesn't even rate as many "quotes" as some EU authors.

 

I have been known, from time to time, to make such decisions.

 

Is now the wrong time to ask how long a Super Star Destroyer is?

 

Which one?

 

As someone who has lurked here for a long time but posts rarely, I can say it does have that vibe sometimes. But I guess that is inevitable in places like these there will always be the few that attempt to lord it over people with their perceived knowledge level or community status. Including people in the discussion goes a long way to helping newcomers feel welcome.

 

This forum is largly about cliqs and fan opinions in comparrison to what the Wookieepedia desires/proclaims itself to be. If it wants to be a canonically accurate presentation of the facts then it should be welcoming all the help it can get, making judgememnts only if the infomation is suspect.

I mean on one hand they were begging for donations not that long ago, but on the other hand they are acting as something far less appealing than they pretend to be. My wiki experiences are largly from beyond the wookieepedia, but the things people are saying here about the Wook are the same issues I've been having elsewhere in Wikiland.

 

Quotes aren't really the site's bread and butter, at all. The amount of effort that goes into quote articles is tiny compared to traditional in-universe articles, which makes sense.

 

It was a reference to a minor Wookieepedia incident back in 2006; you can check earlier in the thread for the details. Nothing's changed about it since, naturally - but I find it amusing that even for a smokescreen quotes page for Lucas, people were too lazy to find enough quotes from the creator of Star Wars.

 

Personally I think the Wook's biggest problem is too many admins, too powerful admins, and wrong people as admins.

Granted, I haven't kept up with Wook politics since I left the site, but unless things have changed, those admins have waay too many liberties and unchecked power. Which isn't bad in and of itself, but when they number in their fourties, and seemingly just happen to be made up of the most active contributors, it paints a grim picture. One of veterans being awarded what amounts to dictatorial power for their services. It raises the question of how likely it is that out of the 100 most active contributors, about half also have the mental and emotional maturity to handle dictatorial power (no hard numbers on this, just impressions). Those are some sick odds, if so.

I've found this to be the Wook in a nutshell. In simple terms, it is a policy amendment that asked the administration whether they wanted their power unchecked or not. Only admins were allowed to vote, as I recall. Naturally, it passed unanimously. Now it requires any single admin to act so egregiously out of line that a majority of his peers will vote against him, for any of his desicions to be revoked. This in addition to the individual admin already having pretty free reins when it comes to interpreting policy as he sees fit. In practice unchecked dictatorial power as far as I've seen and can tell, though I'm admittedly biased.

The worst part, though, is that I kinda agree with it. The Wook's overarching purpose is to be the best SW info repository in the world, and I do think the administrations' Sith-like approach gets the job done in the big picture. For all my doubts regarding the administration, I think they are doing a bang-up job of fact-gathering and getting things done in spite of everything. I just wish they would stop the pretense that the individual user has any rights or securities vs the administration like on a normal community site, and admit that they are the Galactic Empire of SW lore. Cause at least that is a stance I could respect.


Some background:
I was with the site for little over a year, but got banned in '07. It started as a matter of Holocron continuity, me vs admins. And while I today think I can make a pretty solid case for my stance back then, I didn't have what it took at the time to prove my point, so I can see their reluctance to have conceded it. What surprised me back then, however, was the harsh treatment I got. No one was willing to even discuss the issue, or explain their reasoning to me. I was threatened with a ban just for bringing up canon, and it was realized soon after. Now, being a vindictive and angry SOB I gave the collective administration a piece of my mind when I got back, complaining loudly that their written rules for admin power at the time in no way permitted my ban. Once again my arguments were ignored and I was banned anew for "making demands of the administration". I gave them the finger and left, getting permabanned in the process. If I'm not mistaken, this was before the admins got unchecked even, so I shudder to think what happens to anyone rocking the boat these days.

So you can say I am biased. But you can also say I have personal experience with the Wook Cabal having too much unchecked power.


My two cents.

 

The problem is not getting rid of vandals and spam, the problem (at least an important part of it) is when they put themselves above LFL material. You don't delete actual LFL material from your LFL-based encyclopedic site. I think that's one thing we can agree on.

I've also not found the guidelines for how to post images very useful, which I used to be able to do. Something about 50 mainspace edits necessary before a contributor can post images, but I have over 700 edits, are none of these "mainspace"? Why do I need a bureaucracy to understand how the rules work?

 

If you have questions such as "What does mainspace mean?" you can post them in Wookieepedia's Senate Hall. We'll be more than happy to help you out. Complaining about it here just for the sake of piling more bashing onto the anti-Wookieepedia bandwagon isn't going to accomplish anything.

Check out this page for a handy explanation of what all of the spaces are. "Mainspace" just refers to actual articles. If you've made at least fifty edits to articles (that is, not talk pages, user pages, etc), then you can upload an image.

 

I'm suddenly reminded of how politicians never just call a spade a spade but instead insist upon referring to it as a general purpose digging instrument.

 

Referring to reasonable criticism of Wookieepedia as "bashing" and an "anti-Wookieepedia bandwagon" instead of engaging in dialogue about it isn't going to accomplish anything either.
Maybe you missed the parts where we mentioned some of the features we liked about it (such as how the vast majority of its users are interested in having fun cataloging the various details of the SW universe). But when one of the issues in question is the administration, a more neutral setting would be the best place for a discussion, wouldn't you agree?