Forum:The Great Article Exodus, Part II

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FFW will begin on Friday, July 22nd, 2011.

You thought there wouldn't be a part two, didn't you? Well you were wrong!

For those of you just tuning in, Lyrithya and I have given the Uncyclopedia maintenance templates a make-over, simplifying dozens of unhelpful, disorganized, and downright ugly templates down to five far better-looking ones. I present to you: {{merge}}, {{mergeinto}}, {{expand}}, {{fix}}, and {{AAP}}. Read them, study them, learn how they work; for these are your new tools in the fight against crap. I encourage you to use them liberally since, as you may have noticed, Uncyclopedia needs a lot of fixing up. I know we've been a bit lax on the tagging in the past, but this time no article, no matter how old or obscure, shall escape these templates' grasp.

Now, organizing the templates has revealed a few articles that may have slipped under the radar recently. These anomalies serve as a reminder that terrible articles lurk everywhere throughout the wiki, bringing down the quality of the entire site, making edit patrolling more difficult, hindering large-scale maintenance, and most importantly making Uncyclopedia a lot less fun to read.

So I propose to you something that is far, far overdue: A Forest Fire Week, wherein all users are encouraged to tag crap articles with a special template that gives the tagged article seven days to live. Of course, other users, upon spying a good idea or just an article they have a certain fondness for, are free to adopt the article by moving it into their userspace where it will remain alive and untouched.

Some of you may think this is a bad idea for a variety of reasons, but consider this: our current deletion procedure, VFD, only goes through a handful of articles every few days. We have over thirty three thousand articles. We could more than afford to slim down a bit. And who knows, maybe all the mass activity will invite people to find articles worthy of a second chance that they wouldn't have found otherwise. So let's stop pussyfooting around and do this thing. – Sir Skullthumper, MD (criticize • writings • critchat) 07:38 Jun 29, 2011

Vote: Forest Fire Week

Score: 9 people Smokey the Bear has to keep an eye on

• For. – Sir Skullthumper, MD (criticize • writings • critchat) 07:38 Jun 29, 2011
• For. It has been far too long. -- The Zombiebaron 07:42, June 29, 2011 (UTC)
•  For. Can we forest fire Dr. Skullthumper ~Sir Frosty (Talk to me!) 07:45, June 29, 2011 (UTC)
•  For. Provided we don't tag any of MY articles. (But seriously, why did you rework the templates. The older ones were so much more funny. Please don't change the templates. Please don't). --Scofield & Friends 10:54, June 29, 2011 (UTC)
  • They were also extremely inconsistent and generally useless (for example, one template being the duplicate of another template, but not having a 30-day timer). But we're up for suggestions for changes - leave a message on that template's talkpage. The important thing is that they're not so focused on funny that a person whose article gets tagged has no idea what to do. – Sir Skullthumper, MD (criticize • writings • critchat) 15:02 Jun 29, 2011
•  Nope. I think we have enough shortcuts to deletion as it is. —Sir Socky (talk) (stalk) GUN SotM UotM PMotM UotY PotM WotM 13:28, 29 June 2011
•  For. -- -> That's Poop Man Poop 15:18, June 29, 2011 (UTC)
• Yes I've been thinking about this literally since before I left.~~ Sir Ljlego, GUN  [talk] 15:40, June 29, 2011 (UTC)
• Yes ~  Talk 21:46, 29 June 2011 (UTC)
•  Against. I could see it being abused and causing drama. --Mn-z 01:56, June 30, 2011 (UTC)

  The admins have always had the final say when it comes to deleting a page. So the only people who could really abuse a FFW would be the admins, and we all know that would never happen. Ever. -- The Zombiebaron 05:03, June 30, 2011 (UTC)

  You sure on this matter? ~Sir Frosty (Talk to me!) 08:12, June 30, 2011 (UTC)

•  For. 33,000 articles sounds a lot but at least half are probably piss-poor to atrocious. --RomArtus*Imperator ® (Orate) 08:04, June 30, 2011 (UTC)
• Woo do it -- 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 11:56, June 30, 2011 (UTC)
•  Fire? How about  Detonation!? There's C4, TNT, Thermite... -- Sir "TheSlyPony" Invariably certifiable. Rap sheet. [[::File:Sexy_twilight.jpeg|His shameless obsession.]] 05:21 July 9, 2011 (UTC)
• THEDUDEMAN likes this! Lieutenant THEDUDEMAN Dude ... Totally UOTM KUN GotA F@H 02:46, July 17, 2011 (UTC)
• Late to the party But fuck this. Woody On Fire! Talking Woody Stalking Woody 18:59, July 20, 2011 (UTC)
• Against, for the record. -- Sir Mhaille  (talk to me)

One week is WAY too short

This is a good idea...but one week is SUPER short. Its not enough time for people to go through articles and check them out to salvage them and even worse...for people to realise that their articles are tagged. Some people don't log on as frequently as others. I can't think of any reason to make this a lightening bolt one week deal either. Can this be extended? --ShabiDOO 21:56, June 29, 2011 (UTC)

If we extended it, more articles would be tagged, and thus more time would be required to sort through them, so extending it wouldn't really accomplish anything. Also, if someone's article gets deleted, they can always ask for a copy back. – Sir Skullthumper, MD (criticize • writings • critchat) 21:58 Jun 29, 2011

More articles being tagged would be better for all. One week is too fast. --ShabiDOO 22:00, June 29, 2011 (UTC)

We can do it more than once, you know, and it still doesn't address the issue you brought up (if it is even an issue) of time. Also, you gotta give us admins a break, here. Huffing a week's worth of tagged articles is doable. Huffing more than that, it'll take forever to get through them all. We don't blindly delete anything during a FFW. – Sir Skullthumper, MD (criticize • writings • critchat) 22:02 Jun 29, 2011

A rapid one week purge of articles just seems a little scary to me. Especially if the few users who are really interested in doing some re-writes aren't around this week. It might mean a whole lot of potential content to be improved on wiped out in a short period of time. Aleister himself is without a computer right now and he is a re-writer. Do you at least get what I mean? Ayways. --ShabiDOO 22:09, June 29, 2011 (UTC)

I do get what you mean. However, the thing about potential content is that there is always more. We may wipe out a few hundred articles in this week, but there will still be thousands upon thousands of articles better suited to rewriting. Also, anything tagged with a maintenance template, such as {{fix}}, will be immune to FFW. We don't want to delete articles that have a chance, just true, unambiguous crap. Stuff that still has a chance can get tagged with other templates that allow articles to live for much longer. – Sir Skullthumper, MD (criticize • writings • critchat) 22:11 Jun 29, 2011

Whats the history of this like? Has it been done before? What was the result like? --ShabiDOO 22:24, June 29, 2011 (UTC)

It's a rather old tradition that hasn't been done since four or five years ago. The pattern was broken when the admins decided they didn't want to shift through any more junk and shot down the next vote. Something called "Vigilance Week" cropped up sometime between then and now, which was rather well-received - it was basically FFW with some fancy extras that allowed people to adopt articles. But of course, people can adopt articles at any point during the week by just moving it to userspace - no need for any of that fancy V-week junk.

The results, as far as I can tell, were very good - the overall quality of the site went up, redlinks and fresh creativity abounded, and nothing of value was lost. Since then, however, people have gotten the idea in their heads that whenever we delete an article, no matter how crappy, we're aborting a fetus of an idea that might become something good later. VFD became the sole avenue of deletion, which doesn't keep up with Uncyclopedia's growth at all. Now it's 2011, we haven't had a proper FFW for years, and we have 33,000 articles, many of which are junky junky junk. – Sir Skullthumper, MD (criticize • writings • critchat) 22:29 Jun 29, 2011

And what does your grandmother have to say about all of this? --ShabiDOO 22:37, June 29, 2011 (UTC)

I'm opposed to abortion on aesthetic grounds, just sayin'. --Mn-z 23:13, June 30, 2011 (UTC)

Skullthumpers grandmother said that about The Great Article Exodus, Part II? --ShabiDOO 05:26, July 9, 2011 (UTC)

Question

Am I allowed to tag half the templates, and about 20% of categories during forest fire week? --Mn-z 02:04, June 30, 2011 (UTC)

If they're unused, unnecessary, or easily replaceable, go for it. A cleanup's a cleanup. – Sir Skullthumper, MD (criticize • writings • critchat) 02:21 Jun 30, 2011

What is your definition of "unnecessary"? My definition includes, but is not limited to, brightly colored boxes of canned "humor" and footer listcruft that doesn't categorize. --Mn-z 23:20, June 30, 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, that sounds about right to me. – Sir Skullthumper, MD (criticize • writings • critchat) 23:22 Jun 30, 2011

Template Design

I like the buttons but perhaps an image as well to go with them as with others? Perhaps Sonje would be interested?? --RomArtus*Imperator ® (Orate) 11:07, June 30, 2011 (UTC)

Another Question

If someone puts a Forest Fire tag on an article that shouldn't have it, what is the process for working that out? --Mn-z 01:55, July 1, 2011 (UTC)

If caught pre-huffing spree:

1. Revert the addition of the FFW tag.
2. Ask the user what they were doing.
3. If the two of you can't work it out, ask others for input.
4. If there's a consensus it ought to be tagged but you want it saved (e.g. you see potential others don't), you can keep a copy in your userspace.

If caught during the huffing spree:

1. An admin looks at the article before huffing, notices that it doesn't need a tag, and removes it.
2. Optionally, the admin will then list the article on VFD, where its fate can be decided. – Sir Skullthumper, MD (criticize • writings • critchat) 02:04 Jul 01, 2011

A bump of this topic

+10 sounds like community consensus. Shall we go ahead? -- 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 02:56, July 9, 2011 (UTC)

Make that +11. Skully's right, this is long overdue. -- Sir "TheSlyPony" Invariably certifiable. Rap sheet. [[::File:Sexy_twilight.jpeg|His shameless obsession.]] 05:23 July 9, 2011 (UTC)

Why: This a bad idea

In a nutshell, this I think this is will basically turn into a way to delete articles that would have survived on VFD.

For example, I think Category:People who didn't fuck your mom in the kitchen last night should be deleted because it is a category that doesn't categorize. And unlike most categories that don't categorize, this doesn't even rise to the level of footer listcruft. Rather, this is an in-side joke that camps in the category list of various articles. Also, the point of the inside joke is that SPIKE and myself are of the opinion that navigation aids should help the reader navigate articles, not attempt to be crack-wise by being canned listcruft. No-one who wasn't present in the discussion on Forum:What are Categories for? will get the inside joke.

Therefore, I think Category:People who didn't fuck your mom in the kitchen last night should be deleted, and if we have a FFW, I will tag that category unless I get instructions to the contrary. However, there were 11 people that voted to keep said category on VFD. I can think of other examples of articles that have "passed" VFD yet some people strongly want to delete. In addition, there are many more articles I dislike that I never put on VFD because I knew that they had no chance of being deleted.

If there was an article that I thought needed to be deleted, and I thought it would get deleted on VFD, I probably would have long-ago nominated it, and it would have been deleted a year or two ago. --Mn-z 12:04, July 9, 2011 (UTC)

Problem with The Great Article Exodus

Folks, Uncyclopedia is an ENCYCLOPEDIA. That means that people who come to the site and type in an entry expect something to come up. Granted, what comes up is often weak. However, it seems that key articles are being deleted far faster than they can be replaced with better-quality articles. This means that basic entries are missing, and there are very large holes in Uncyclopedia now. Either we all have to begin spending major time writing articles that have been recently deleted, or we have to somehow bring on a lot of new authors to pick up the slack.

For example, I looked over the most wanted articles. Many have over 500 links to them. That's a lot of red hyperlinks in other articles. Some articles that were deleted weren't that bad. "Monopoly" is an example - not the greatest article, but certainly worth keeping around until somebody got around to doing a re-write. Now, there's nothing. I am all for improving the wiki, but new readers will be turned off if they come to the site and type in basic articles (like Mel Gibson) and get a big goose-egg. I am willing to do my part to write requested/needed articles, but I think more of us should step up in this regard, or else we are going to have a site that might be high on quality, but will become pitifully low on quantity (which is just not acceptable for a site that is supposed to be a type of encyclopedia).

Suggestions for how to deal with this conundrum are of course invited and, I believe, would be greatly appreciated by the entire Uncyclopedia community.

--Sir NoNamesLeft (GUN) WotM NotM 18:48, July 9, 2011 (UTC)

I don't deny what you say is true, but I think the first step is to get rid of the crappy articles so we can see where we're at. Right now we have a bunch of crappy articles for major subjects but we don't actually know how big the scope of the problem is until after they're deleted and show up on wantedpages. Moreover, I'd rather someone come along and find a hole (and thus be forced to browse Uncyclopedia another way, perhaps by featured content??) than to find an article so crappy and unfunny that they assume the entire site is that way. Also, Uncyclopedia is not an encyclopedia; it as an encyclopedia parody. While we should eventually strive to parody an encyclopedia as precisely as possible, we do not work the same way. We aren't like a real encyclopedia where someone can create a stub and someone else can add to it, or where a stub can even be considered a decent placeholder. If it's not funny, it shouldn't be here. – Sir Skullthumper, MD (criticize • writings • critchat) 18:54 Jul 09, 2011

A quick P.S. - I am aware of this issue and I am working on putting together a solution - a better search engine for Uncyclopedia that, instead of turning up nada on a popular subject, will instead give the searcher an article as closely related to the general thing they searched for as possible. But I don't think keeping crappy articles just so we have search results is a solution. It's just not worth it. – Sir Skullthumper, MD (criticize • writings • critchat) 18:58 Jul 09, 2011

So I'm guessing....

I guess that if Chronarion is Sun Yat-sen, then Mordillo is Mao Zedong and Lyrithya is Deng Xiaoping. I mean, the whole template makeover is excellent, but we do need to have articles that are already on Wikipedia and also funny. In fact, by writing requested articles, articles already on Wikipedia, and humorfy it, it's a win-win situation for both admins (who are forced to clean up messes left by vandals and IPs, and also NXWave) and members (who put all their hard work to making it). |Si Plebius Dato' Joe ang Man on Fire CUN|IC Kill | 06:43, July 16, 2011 (UTC)

What? – Sir Skullthumper, MD (criticize • writings • critchat) 06:52 Jul 16, 2011

Does that make me the Tank Man?

In yo' face, Mao!!!!!

-- Sir "TheSlyPony" Invariably certifiable. Rap sheet. [[::File:Sexy_twilight.jpeg|His shameless obsession.]] 07:14 July 16, 2011 (UTC)

Mordillo died this year after spending time looking after Uncyc. Shortly after, the Gang of Four are banned (one of them used to run UnNews before Zombiebaron become Head of Propaganda) and Lyrithya announced some reforms, one of them is changing the logos (in which I suggested three years earlier by changing the logo but was reverted afterwards. Now it's changed. Thank God). Thne we protested against Unsoc and you stood in front of their tanks. |Si Plebius Dato' Joe ang Man on Fire CUN|IC Kill | 11:03, July 17, 2011 (UTC)

What in the Sam Hell is this motherfucker talking about -- 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 17:55, July 17, 2011 (UTC)

What? – Sir Skullthumper, MD (criticize • writings • critchat) 18:04 Jul 17, 2011

I finally found a use for that stuff they taught me in Modern Chinese history 101! See also Gang of Four. -- Sir "TheSlyPony" Invariably certifiable. Rap sheet. [[::File:Sexy_twilight.jpeg|His shameless obsession.]] 03:37 July 18, 2011 (UTC)

It means they will stop airing repeats of Coronation street! --ShabiDOO 02:56, July 17, 2011 (UTC)

A special template?

I probably should already know this, but what is the aforementioned special template we are supposed to add to pages during FFW? -- Sir "TheSlyPony" Invariably certifiable. Rap sheet. [[::File:Sexy_twilight.jpeg|His shameless obsession.]] 06:42 July 21, 2011 (UTC)