Forum:So, where do we stand on rewriting features?

Forums: Index > Village Dump > So, where do we stand on rewriting features?

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It's happened before, but I just want to check the policy on rewriting 2005-y features (canwecanwecanwe?).EpicAwesomeness (talk) 17:34, March 20, 2012 (UTC)

I can't see why not. -- The Zombiebaron 17:43, March 20, 2012 (UTC)

Well, features are the historical record of the site, and if we start dismantling the 2005 features (a couple are famously bad, which is good!), what are we then but like students in the Cultural Revolution? The next thing we know users who were here in 2005 will be dragged from their homes and put on show trial. I vote with my feet, and stomp on Mao a few times. Aleister 17:52 20-3-'12

I don't see why not either, but our policy strongly advises against it. --EMC ^[TALK] 18:13 Mar 20 2012

Ah. In that case, a vote of some sort should probably be held before a feature is rewritten (or if the rewrite is done in userspace, we should vote before it gets mainspaced). -- The Zombiebaron 18:58, March 20, 2012 (UTC)

It has been done. God was rewritten by IC and then refeatured. (I'm fairly confident that's what happened.) Having said that, over at WP they have a policy of tagging "Good" articles. Once an article has been tagged it can then later have a vote to remove the articles "Good" status. (This was done to Uncyclopedia. See the Wikipedia:Talk:Unyclopedia for a brief history of changes to the status of this page.) I bring this up as I would like to have the capacity to vote on removal of feature status prior to someone rewriting an article. While some features have suffered from article rot, others may have been promoted due to differing standards. (After all, AAAAAAAAA! may not be to everyone's taste, but it does hold a special place for being a feature, an in-joke, and the first article listed in an alphabetical listing. To me it's a significant part of uncyc's history.) Nominally Humane! 09:24 22 Mar

Actually, God hasn't been featured a second time. Adding that to VFH then. Nominally Humane! 09:52 22 Mar

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Senator. --Black Flamingo 10:11, March 22, 2012 (UTC)

Savethemooses rewrote his own Phonics after realizing it was a piece of shit. Of course, it was his own article so that's different, and there are plenty of other articles to fix up that arent already featured, anyway, but i truly don't see why not if the feature itself is uber-dated and frankly shitty. Your prerogative. --175.211.27.186 05:13, March 24, 2012 (UTC)

Vote 1: Allow the creation of "Request to remove feature status" on articles through Village Dump

Running tally not required

Support

• Yep Given that these will be minimal, and there are some shitty features, it's low work-load. Nominally Humane! 06:38 24 Mar

Oppose

• Remove feature status? Has the Cultural Revolution taught us nothing? I say anyone who was here before, picking a date at random, October 28, 2009, should be put on show trial and made to live in wikipedia. And this entire exercise is a danger to Senator, a page that people can only hope to equal during their stay here. Aleister 9:29 24-3-'12
• this is completely unnecessary --112.187.239.21 19:36, March 24, 2012 (UTC)
• Never. The recent article are the real crappy ones.--WELCOME TO UNCYCLOPEDIA HELL!!!! 05:24, March 25, 2012 (UTC)

  I think you may have missed a few chapters in "How to make friends and influence people". Nominally Humane! 05:51 25 Mar

  We chatted on irc today, and uncyclopedia is losing pageviews. It's going down because the good old articles are fixbombed to death, and everybody hates the new "witty" articles. In fact i laughed when i saw God but not Tropical Cyclone.--WELCOME TO UNCYCLOPEDIA HELL!!!! 05:55, March 25, 2012 (UTC)

  Which version of God? The current or the feature? And as for Tropical cyclone - there never was an "old" version. I did write based on a late 2006 feature that I felt was pretty "meh". So, in short, God is a more like a current article than the other. Nominally Humane! 06:01 25 Mar

  God:the current version. And most of the 2011-feature articles sucked. Uncyclopedia is losing personality because of this.--WELCOME TO UNCYCLOPEDIA HELL!!!! 06:04, March 25, 2012 (UTC)

  I wonder who came up with the concept for the current version. Nominally Humane! 06:18 25 Mar

  Lies! Uncyclopedia never had personality. You only thought so because you were young and naive! And your taste was shit. Sir Modusoperandi ^Boinc! 09:08, March 25, 2012 (UTC)

  I just liked the way of the past more. I don't mean i support in-jokes like AAAAA! and Chuck Norris; But Our wiki is really dropping in stats. People like our old (Maybe 2007 or 2008) articles more then the way it is now. Recent features use wits and formatting to acheive good status; Old articles are fixbombed and killed without reason. Retard, The Game, Fetish, Twilight_(book),(But there is a new version of this one, I can't afford to save the current version.) 2005 Cruft, Paris Hilton_(Person) and many other good old quality articles are fix-bomed and killed. Maybe we can give use to a mix of old style and new style articles. Also, we have fewer in jokes because people care us less now. If the great people of the internet cared, we may have more drama into our site, and thus creating in-jokes. I do NOT encourage the use of one in a random article though. --WELCOME TO UNCYCLOPEDIA HELL!!!! 09:25, March 25, 2012 (UTC)

  The old articles had no formatting because formatting hadn't been invented yet. Heck, for most of 2006 we only had 19 letters and 4 numbers. And two of those were 7.

  Unless people police the "classic" articles, they will inevitably fill with cruft. It's a wiki. That's what happens. That's what wikis are for. Without wikis, the important parts of the internet would fill with cruft. Like that site with the boobies.

  And people like our 2007 and 2008 stuff because that stuff was mine. I'm awesome. Sir Modusoperandi ^Boinc! 09:36, March 25, 2012 (UTC)

  So it's all your fault then. (And if you want to stop fixbombing, as you put it, fix articles in UN:FIX.) Nominally Humane! 10:18 25 Mar

  I also wondered why Paris Hilton (person) and some of the others got huffed. I was mostly gone during the 3000 article purge last year, and lots of good stuff is gone. Doesn't mean the new stuff isn't good, but Modus doesn't seem to be writing much anymore, so the features are falling into makeshift spam. The last good feature I read was in 2010, something about a wizard doing something. Aleister 14:39 25-3

  The problem with trying to fix articles in UN:FIX is that its hard to get consensus on how and when an article is, in fact, fixed. What is funny to one person is not so funny to another person. So I could attempt to fix an article in the to be fixed category, but unless someone else agrees with me that it is in fact fixed, my efforts are for nothing. -- Simsilikesims(♀UN) Talk here. 06:52, March 31, 2012 (UTC)

Vote 2: Allow the rewriting of features

Running tally not required

Support

• Conditional By auto confirmed users only and if the principle author of the original is no longer active, or if they give consent. We already clean up article rot or update features that have time-sensitive information (like The Doctor). Nominally Humane! 06:38 24 Mar
• More or less as above. EpicAwesomeness (talk) 17:06, March 24, 2012 (UTC)

Oppose

• Conditional oppose. If there's a real good reason, like a colonization, or some other extremely good reason. But not just because, because. I've rewritten Wizard in the past, and will link it here if I can find it, but other than A Wizard Did It, and maybe Heaven's Gate... Aleister 17:38 24-3-'12
•  Against. Features could be updated (i.e. if someone dies and the article needs to be put in the past tense) but don't see the urgency for rewriting features as such. --RomArtus*Imperator ® (Orate) 22:16, March 24, 2012 (UTC)
•  Against. Unless we say "those from 2007 and prior" or something. But we can revert articles to their Featured versions. Mattsnow 22:52, March 24, 2012 (UTC)

  What about an article like Ireland? It was featured in '05 or so (and its original version was, compared to some of the content we have now-a-days, shit). It has since been pretty much entirely rewritten, and while it's STILL not a great article, it does look nice, and will not get us sued for libel. But it's not really funny. What should we do about it? ~ BB ~ (T) ~ Sun, Mar 25 '12 5:08 (UTC)

  Same thing with Canada. The "rewriting" could be a major huffing session. Mattsnow 05:22, March 25, 2012 (UTC)

  Huffing features I have an issue with. They are a part of the site's history. I'm all for improvement, but not at the price of shrinkage. Nominally Humane! 05:54 25 Mar

  To be fair, Canada used to be awesome. Then it got a taste of fame and it changed, man. It used to be about the beaver! Sir Modusoperandi ^Boinc! 09:11, March 25, 2012 (UTC)

  So maybe somebody should clean Canada up. Or do we need a vote on whether or not to revert back to this? ~ BB ~ (T) ~ Sun, Mar 25 '12 10:14 (UTC)

•  NEVER--WELCOME TO UNCYCLOPEDIA HELL!!!! 10:16, March 25, 2012 (UTC)

Conclusion

So, are we generally against the potential de-featuring of featured articles and casual rewriting of featured articles (excluding, say, voted rewrites like IC)? EpicAwesomeness (talk) 16:15, March 30, 2012 (UTC)

I guess so, although the featuring of that IC rewrite has gathered a bit of support. Maybe IC is the exception to the rule (given we're making it up as we go along). But as for tidying up, updating, fighting article rot - that's okay, within reason. Nominally Humane! 11:28 30 Mar

So whadda we do with Canada and Ireland...and others? ~ BB ~ (T) ~ Sat, Mar 31 '12 4:52 (UTC)

We form a team of writers to rewrite it....also known as IC. -- Simsilikesims(♀UN) Talk here. 06:48, March 31, 2012 (UTC)

I ...see. Well, this looks like my stop, so this is where I'll be getting off. See ya 'round! ~ BB ~ (T) ~ Sat, Mar 31 '12 7:09 (UTC)