Talk: User generated content

Dealing with user-generated content on the wiki

We need to decide on what our standard practices should be regarding adding pages about the content users create in the Foundry.

On STOWiki, it was decided that this content had to be kept in a Foundry namespace. (All titles for pages about Foundry missions had to start with Foundry:.) We had the additional requirement of requiring the ID be added to the end, but I feel that's not something we should do here.

The advantage of a separate namespace is that it essentially lets us set up either an opt-in or opt-out approach to whether user-generated content is including in searches. You could do this by going to your preferences page and checking or unchecking the Foundry namespace (or whether we decide on). We e can set it up so that it is either checked or unchecked by default.

The disadvantage is that this is less user-friendly to those adding the pages and linking between foundry articles is more of a pain. It'll require more vigilance from the community to make sure that user-generated content is kept in this namespace, and there'll be more errors for the experience users to help correct.

Another suggested standard: pages about official content should not link to pages with user-generated content. (Pages about the Foundry themselves is a reasonable exception.)

So, thoughts, comments? — oOeyes 03:31, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

I like the idea of a foundry namespace and agree that the requirement to add an ID at the end is probably unnecessary. I do think it would be useful to have a standard template format for these pages though, as while they would be a separate namespace they would be more Wiki-like than a simple talk page and as such it'd be better for them to be at least internally consistent, although I'm not beholden to that idea.

I agree that that pages about official content should not link to pages with user-generated content, with the notable exception besides pages about the foundry itself to also include the page about the Well-Informed Harper which should have a link to the foundry namespace main page(and I think there should be a main page for that name space to give people at least an idea of what they are looking at.) Shaudius (talk) 04:40, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

Agreed on the main page. STOWiki has Foundry:Portal for that purpose and Foundry:List of missions as a list page for all the foundry content added. Of course, STOWiki opened the gates on this late enough that there aren't a very large number of foundry missions on the wiki. If we get enough, we'd need to break the list up somehow, but I think for now we're safe with starting with Foundry:Portal and Foundry:Quests (or Foundry:List of quests) as a starting point. — oOeyes 05:36, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

Requiring the user of a Foundry namespace sounds like a good idea, both for ease of distinguishing between official and user-made content, and to avoid cluttering (or even coincidental overlapping) of page names.

I see no reason to require IDs as part of page names, as that information can simply be included in the page's contents, with no loss of convenience.

Chances are, someone potentially interested in playing a foundry quest will visit its page anyway.

As for the linking from non-foundry to foundry pages, I entirely agree this is something that should not happen aside from links to a few specific entry pages, lest enthusiastic authors turn the wiki into well-intentioned advertising grounds.

Finally, a question: how do namespaces interact with categories, and what kind of guidelines do you think should be observed, should people wish to make new categories to group quests in an overarching plot, or reuse existing ones like a category for important/recurring NPCs? Derangement (Talk | contribs) 07:09, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

Categories and namespaces are separate entities and don't affect each other. Any restrictions would be things we as the community would enforce (like there probably won't be any categories where it will make sense to mix official content pages and foundry pages). The wiki would allow this without a problem, but we would want to fix it when we see it happen. So the onus is on us to create and maintain a separate category structure for foundry pages. And since it isn't possibly to create a separate category namespace, we'd just have to keep them separate by name, i.e. Category:Quests and Category:Foundry quests and such. — oOeyes 07:18, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

It should be a strict control imo, because we authors tend to be enhusiastic about our content. So a word limit, field limit etc ahouls be implemented. That said, there should be ome empty fields which let authors add things which make their campaign different in limited words.

However, we will have to rewrite a lot if foundry and normal Wiki is separated. afaik, STO Foundry was never really integrated to the game. The foundry in Neverwinter is integrated with the game. So eventually foundry pages may end up with twice the work.

This will also bring in another perspective. We will need a canon of the all the regions which can possibly be included in foundry stating the changes which happened recently which can serve as a source of guide or a handbook for them to design their quests within this timeframe. . . . .

Maybe it is better to define the limits of Wiki beforehand so the things can be focused on specific things rather than spent energy on things which may not be necessary.

Gillrmn (talk) 18:04, 23 April 2013 (UTC)