Forum:Dear Diary: VFH Sucks

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Now is a good chance to start from scratch. The downfall that necessitated a site move could be traced back to a lot of stuff (lol wikia), but the roots of Uncyclopedia sucking (jk it always sucked) may be the overcomplicated VFH system.

Therefore, since it happens to be conveniently empty, I say we bring back the old fashioned, much much more user friendly system of "Level 2 Header + score template + For!" that was used pre-end-of-2007. Who's with me! -- T​K​F​​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​UU​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​CK 05:08, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

• Any way to view the old system? The Woodburninator Minimal Effort ™ 06:00, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

  Any one of the Old Archives can give you a glimpse. Really, much simpler. Or, if we desire a little step up from that, the version with the boxes also works. The VFH page would be edited directly without subpages, so it'd stay bumped on the watchlist all the time. Also, to Sims: that box was an add-on by Spang that was incorporated into the old site's .js, so I bet it's a bug. If implement Retro VFH, though, then there wouldn't be pages anymore and we wouldn't need the box. FU SPANG! -- T​K​F​​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​UU​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​CK 07:20, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

  So, pretty much it would look like the "All Nominations" Tab then? Ok. The Woodburninator Minimal Effort ™ 08:47, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

The box in the lower right corner that used to appear in VFH entries no longer does. Is this a bug or a feature? -- Simsilikesims(♀UN) Talk here. 06:12, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

If that voting box in the entries that Spang made is too hard to do then leave it be. The VFH with the boxes is the version I like, makes it easier to see who voted which way, count votes and so on. ---- Simsilikesims(♀UN) Talk here. 07:28, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

Yeah, it's probably the best form. Pages were the main problem. It's easy to forgot about VFH when it doesn't keep popping up like a hyperactive prairie dog nephew. -- T​K​F​​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​UU​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​CK 07:57, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

Flow will resolve that issue. Once we have Flow, all our current problems will become puppies. Seriously, though, a guy's looking into that comment box thing. -— Lyrithya ༆ 08:30, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

Bump! This vote will close on February 1st, right in time for the VFH freeze and Top 10 Articles of 2012. So vote now or forever maybe do it later. -- T​K​F​​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​UU​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​CK 03:48, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

Only objection I would have to this is that I enjoy going back and looking at the votes for a particular article, and it's easy to find vfh subpages using Special:PrefixIndex/Uncyclopedia:VFH/[whatever]. If we go back to the old version, I won't be able to do that anymore because the noms will be lost in Uncyclopedia:VFH/archive[whatever]. Some of that stuff is good comedy. Lookit Filial Piety.

Also, this objection is completely and utterly pointless to most other people. ~ BB ~ (T) ~ Tue, Jan 8 '13 15:09 (UTC)

It can start after the voting for December's best is closed on (or around) the 15th, probably. Sir Modusoperandi ^Boinc! 03:08, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

Another good idea. I was a lil worried that the overhaul might distract from Top 10 voting, and it would be less hassling to make the changes during a feature-freeze anyway, but it isn't too big of an undertaking and might even draw attention to that little Top3 box that everyone except the admins who update it seems to forget about so often. Plus it seems like we got a clear consensus already. -- T​K​F​​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​UU​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​CK 05:59, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

First Wikia-less Forum Vote EVER

Score: 6

• Taste the rainbow. -- T​K​F​​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​UU​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​CK 05:08, 5 January 2013 (UTC)
•  For. Although I'd like to point out it's probably more important to make sure all the cracks are filled as far as the site running as it should be before we do this. But yes, I support this. ~Sir Frosty (Talk to me!) 05:11, 5 January 2013 (UTC)
• Boner. -- The Zombiebaron 05:27, 5 January 2013 (UTC)
• HUH? I'd vote on this but I don't remember the old system, willing to give it a try though if everyone else is. Also, there is now one entry on VFH. -- Simsilikesims(♀UN) Talk here. 05:47, 5 January 2013 (UTC)
•  For. In a fit of whoring, I once offered to nom an article. It took me an hour. Anything different is better. ~  Talk 08:42, 5 January 2013 (UTC)
• For The new way is a scone base of a pizza. mAttlobster. (hello) 11:21, 5 January 2013 (UTC)
•  Shit, I should've started this vote. User:Aimsplode/sig6_{17:51 5 January 2013}
•  Boxes+level 2 headers. - P.M., WotM, & GUN, Sir Led Balloon (Tick Tock) (Contribs) 22:42, Jan 5
• Give it a shot. If it sucks, we can always return. The Woodburninator Minimal Effort ™ 18:56, 8 January 2013 (UTC)
• Kill dis bona--ຮ¡г ♣ Ṕ€₳₰€₩ʰ↑zz (৳alk) ($৳alk) 03:08, 9 January 2013 (UTC)
•  For. Much easier. - Not particularly sincere, Sir ColinAYBCUNVFHWhoringMore Whoring at 03:43, Wednesday 09 January 2013 -
•  The old way was not better. ~ BB ~ (T) ~ Thu, Jan 31 '13 2:06 (UTC)
• Against Goes without saying.~~ Sir Ljlego, GUN  [talk] 06:58, 31 January 2013 (UTC)
• For. Just to chip in before I go back to making happy meal toys... I agree that a more simple system will make voting easier.-Sycamore (Talk) 11:19, 31 January 2013 (UTC)
•  Limp boner. -RAHB 11:42, 31 January 2013 (UTC)
• Sorry. I rarely vote against proposals. It would be better to problem solve with the current format than go back to clunky clumps of votes without the extra goodies. --ShabiDOO 02:22, 8 February 2013 (UTC)
•  Against more complex/tedious maintenance regimes. » Brig Sir Dawg | t | v | c » 2013.02.08.04:57

Sorry, but what?

Apologies for bumping this now, but frankly when I saw the forum originally I thought it was a joke born of the fact that VFH was broken due to the move at the time (it has, obviously, since been fixed). We switched to the current format for a reason - it allows for faster nominations, easier voting and vote tracking, auto-archival, and also the use of summary pages and scripts to vote from the page itself. Using the old format, much of this would not be possible - the 'voting box' script to quickvote would not work, we could not sort nominations by age and/or score, and generating reports of scores or nomination health automatically would be impossible.

Thing is, going back to the old system would complicate things more - people would have to edit the page directly and manually keep track of scores, archival would all be by hand and would require manually moving closed nominations to relevant pages, and linking to and locating old nominations would also be very difficult. Some things aren't really much different either way, however - Humbucker complains of it taking an hour to nominate an article, but the process for that, at least, would be pretty much the same with just a couple extra steps, and people without js would be voting the same way either way, but that's not reason to make things more difficult for everyone else... -— Lyrithya ༆ 03:24, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

Ljlego's perspective

Lyrithya edit-conflicted me on this one, and so I don't know how much of this post is a repeat. But, anyway, I would like to quickly and summarily make myself unwelcome back by pointing out why this makes no sense whatsoever from any sort of angle. First, I'm going to address all of the objections to the current system that I can cull from the above text.

1. It's not user-friendly
   • I must say that this is baffling to me. At the very least its accessibility is EXACTLY the same as the (really extremely very) old system. In that (seriously, it's pretty damn) old system, you would do the following: hit edit, scroll past all the stupid bullshit at the top of the VFH page, find the top header, copy-paste the vote table from a commented-out section right above the top header, and type your vote into the table. In the (not actually new but I guess we'll call it) new system, you do the following: enter the name of the article in the text box at the top of the VFH page, and type your vote into the table. Not only is that not challenging - seriously, Humbucker, how does it take an hour to figure that out? - but it eliminates multiple places where human error can take root. But still, even if you don't buy that the current system ADDS convenience, don't seriously try to tell me that it takes any away, because that's simply not true.
2. It prevents people from voting on VFH
   • The line of reasoning here is that, because VFH isn't on recent changes, it necessarily means that traffic is not directed towards it. That is patently ridiculous, and is for four reasons. First, the type of power user who would trawl recent changes at all, let alone enough to notice that VFH is being bumped to the top of the list whenever it is, probably knows what VFH is and votes on it already. Let's not kid ourselves, people were never busting down the doors of VFH and blowing it up like Kesha's phone at any point in our history. In archive 14, one of my articles received 25 votes in 17 days, 1.5 votes per day. Obviously there were more edits to the page than that in that time, but the concept remains. Our traffic then was way higher than it is now (and has been on the decline since long before the first time we talked about breaking away from Wikia). Second, attentional redirection to VFH doesn't work and hasn't worked to increase vote counts. I know this because it was tried, a lot, by many different people, several times while I was active and probably many times after I left to join the circus. If our active, concerted efforts to direct attention to VFH don't work, then an indistinguishable blue link in a sea of equally blue and equally linky links will certainly not either. Third, Uncyclopedia:VFH (not talking about the table summary, but the actual page) is functionally identical to the old VFH system: you click the link to the top right and it brings you to a page where you can vote without fucking up the other tables. The link even says "vote" instead of "edit." Finally, whenever any article is voted on in this system, that individual page gets pushed to the top of recent changes. If (as most people do, or at least did) someone votes on more than one article in one sitting, all of those subpages get bumped. That means that VFH is getting more screen area on recent changes by this system.
3. I prefer boxes + level 2 headers
   • What is there currently? That exact fucking thing. The only difference is that you don't manually create them with the cute two-= tags and copypaste.

Those are the only reasons that I can see against the current system. Let me now run down the reasons why this proposal makes no sense to me. Some of them will revolve around why the old system was kinda shitty, and some will talk about the vote itself. You'll forgive me if I don't elaborate on these; I believe my explanations above are adequate for that.

1. Human error is invited every time someone edits the page
2. Messy archival process is an administrative headache
3. This would change nothing and make absolutely no difference
   • In other words, change for the sake of change? Why?

To close, I want to offer a little bit of personal perspective on the matter. To start, let me explain why I proposed this new system in the first place. It was so that we could have a functionally identical page at Uncyclopedia:VFH that could be flipped around so that old nominations could occasionally be floated back to the top. I also thought (and still think) that each nomination having its own distinct subpage is much cleaner and more pleasant from an administrative perspective. It allows for automatic archival, and allows for the sort of data crunching that gives us the health measurement (which was a later-added feature that I think fits well). My emphasis has been that Uncyclopedia:VFH is functionally identical to boxes + level 2 headers for a reason: that was always the vision I had. VFHS was not something I had ever envisioned or hoped for, and while I think it's a very useful administrative tool, I don't know that it should be available to the general public. We can have a conversation about that, and I welcome it. Likewise, the feature queue came much later, and the complexities of dealing with that are also an issue worth discussing.

I know I literally just got back today, and I don't want to come across as an impetuous creator that's pissed about people messing with his baby. I am not. However, I do think that this is a very clear case of nostalgia goggles replacing sense. There was nothing "great" about old VFH. It had more votes because we had more day-to-day active users and higher traffic. The decline of VFH (which is such an old topic that it was being discussed back when I was a 24-hour user) is attributable to any number of exogenous factors, but the format isn't to blame. This change proposal is reactionary, and if you think about it you'll see that, like most reactionary proposals, it's not going to be effective, but rather an nuisance for all those involved in the transition.~~ Sir Ljlego, GUN  [talk] 03:56, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

To be fair, nostalgia goggles are pretty awesome. /me puts on nostalgia goggles, looks in mirror Sir Modusoperandi ^Boinc! 04:17, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

You got your nostalgia in my goggles! Gross.~~ Sir Ljlego, GUN  [talk] 04:25, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

Going to have to agree with, like, everything that Ljlego said. I personally love VFH the way it is. For all those reasons why he said it doesn't suck. -RAHB 11:30, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

As the person who would have to code javascript for an old-style VFH, I have to agree with Ljlego, Lyrithya and RAHB. ~ BB ~ (T) ~ Tue, Feb 5 '13 3:22 (UTC)

I disagree with everything you said because reasons -- T​K​F​​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​UU​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​CK 06:45, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

I agree with Lj as well. The code for VFH is just not that difficult to understand. The boxes are more attractive and less bulky...and most importantly there is the overview. I use the overview often to see whats being voted on most in how much time to decide what to read. I also think having the against votes grouped together is useful, as that is the comments that will help me improve the article. And being able to vote directly from the article is the best part of all. I prefer voting withotu seeing anyone elses comments or who nommed/wrote the article. I think that any "problems" that there may be, can be dealt with, without reverting back to a forum with clunky headers and mixed voting, no overview, non-separate vote pages and not being able to vote directly from the page. --ShabiDOO 02:20, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

I'm totally with you here. I don't think anyone that post-dated this system has any clue how much of a pain maintenance was before the system we have now. It is so much more usable than one long page with thousands of edits that had to be tediously modified. Even the convoluted feature system we have now is so much better/faster/easier/automated than our old system. It has some downsides (people not knowing how to do a second nomination properly, for example), but I'd much rather simply check a tally score or click a little vote box than go through the mess we dealt with in 2005. It's a win for both admins and users, IMHO. » Brig Sir Dawg | t | v | c » 2013.02.08.02:48

Really? Old or new way, featuring pages doesn't sound like a "win" to me. Haven't we punished the internet enough? It's tubes are full of sadness. And furthermore, also, and too, Sir Modusoperandi ^Boinc! 04:31, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

I am clearly getting tired. Can't write for beans, but could probably eat some. » Brig Sir Dawg | t | v | c » 2013.02.08.04:33