User talk:Zombiebaron/archive42

WHY THE FLYING FUDGESICLE

Not sure if I'm doing this right, or if I'm not supposed to post on here like this. But why is my article DELETED?? SERIOUSLY. What the fudge. That Wigglytuff article took me a fudging forever to write... AND NOW IT'S GONE. I realize it was pointlessly silly. But still. - VertigoRules

Dude, just say fuck. -- 03:45, December 16, 2011 (UTC)

Why would I do that? There's no point to saying it unless you're really mad or for language flavor. And also, I would have no reason to say fudgesicle. - VertigoRules

I have moved your page here so that you can continue working on it. -- The Zombiebaron 04:21, December 17, 2011 (UTC)

Troodon

Zombie, the two of us have been working on that and have made some big changes. At this point it is not a terrible article (and most certainly a lot better now) and its not worthy of an automatic delete. Could you please restore it? Thank you. --ShabiDOO 23:02, December 15, 2011 (UTC)

I have moved your page here so that you can continue working on it. -- The Zombiebaron 04:26, December 17, 2011 (UTC)

Hey

Please ban ThyLegende as he just uploaded some hardcore pornagraphic shock images. I put the files on QVFD so you can delete them too. -- Sir Xam Ralco the Mediocre 22:48, December 16, 2011 (UTC)

Never mind, Romartus took care of it. -- Sir Xam Ralco the Mediocre 22:54, December 16, 2011 (UTC)

Ok. -- The Zombiebaron 04:28, December 17, 2011 (UTC)

Tripped face first into a bar

Hello. A Zombie walked into a bar. This is a note to lots of people, asking them to join into a Walk into a bar collab (and if Iz missed you, you are more than welcome to "Walk into a bar" too!). If you want to join in, make up your best "Walk into a bar" jokes and we will have the bestest "Walk into a bar" page on the innernests! Aleister 16:00 27-12-'11

Ok. -- The Zombiebaron 20:28, December 29, 2011 (UTC)

What the hell did you do with MediaWiki talk:Protectedpagetext?

(give a reason why you huffed it) --218.186.15.10 07:52, December 31, 2011 (UTC)

1. You forgot to say please
2. You are acting like a dick
3. An opinion, no matter how bombastically stated, is not fact

If you really want to make a change to that page, then it might be an idea if you created an account, so people can talk to you, and raise it as an issue in the Community dump (see the link on the left there?). Trying to throw your weight around, when you have no weight, makes you look borh impotent and arrogant. Personally, I can see your point, but as you said on Lyrithya's talk page, UN:N. If you think they should, give them a reason, and a place to voice it. And this is not my talk page. Pup 12:31 31 Dec '11

Yeah. -- The Zombiebaron 18:33, December 31, 2011 (UTC)

Seriously?

Do you have to be so trigger-happy with ICUs? There's nothing wrong with Vladimir Putin. It's not a dumb random article. It's a work in progress and if I put an article on such a high profile figure in my user space I run the risk of someone else creating one in the meantime. More importantly, if I was a new user, I'd be really disheartened to see my work threatened with deletion like that. -- 15Mickey20 (talk to Mickey)  13:09, January 1, 2012 (UTC)

{{construction}}? Pup 01:28 01 Jan '12

Yeah, feel free to replace the {{ICU}} with a {{construction}}. -- The Zombiebaron 17:31, January 1, 2012 (UTC)

The Battle of the River Mole

You huffed the above article 3 days early. It had also met all requirements. Explain yourself? --Zarathustrauk 14:26, January 1, 2012 (UTC)

Your page was originally deleted because of an expired {{ICU}} tag, but I have reversed my decision and undeleted it. -- The Zombiebaron 17:38, January 1, 2012 (UTC)

A belated thank-you from an inveterate procrastinator

Greetings, Zombiebaron. You voted for me on POTM for November, and also for Mexico lol.jpg on VFP. Now, obviously it's been a while since this happened. However, I figured that, while it can be too late to ask for forgiveness, it is never too late to give thanks.

Once again, thank you, and my apologies for not thanking you sooner. This impersonal, auto-generated message will self-destruct in 5 seconds.  ~ BB ~ (T) ~ Wed, Jan 4 '12 11:39 (UTC)

No need to thank me. -- The Zombiebaron 18:04, January 4, 2012 (UTC)

Greetings

I have gone through my records and it appears as though you may have voted for me for some award, supported one or more of my articles on VFH, or supported one or more of my images on VFP, in the past year or so. If this is not the case, then please ignore this message. Otherwise, thank you for your support. May you have a long and fruitful life, and have many parasites. 1234 ~ 18:57, 6 January 2012

You're welcome. -- The Zombiebaron 19:18, January 6, 2012 (UTC)

Why was my page deleted?

Dear Zombiebaron,

Please don't delete pages in my userspace. 68.173.113.106 02:26, January 8, 2012 (UTC)

You are not a user, and therefore do not have a userspace. Please sign up for an account if you don't want me to delete articles you're working on. -- The Zombiebaron 02:37, January 8, 2012 (UTC)

Speaking of deleted pages, you recently huffed my WIP HowTo:Survive an assassination attempt. Could I have it back in my userspace, plz? --Scofield & The Machine 10:31, January 8, 2012 (UTC)

Out of curiosity and misplaced kindness, are you able to restore that IPs page into my userspace. Pup 12:04 08 Jan '12

Did you guys check out the IP's "creds" at wikipedia! His contributions are all maths way beyond any hope I have of comprehension, so he's some kind of kid genius. His parents seem to not want him to make any accounts anywhere, so is there some way to let him put up a user page as an IP. Nah, maybe not, he's got to rebel some time and go radical (i.e. create an account), and it might as well be now. But he may be an interesting addition to uncy if he comes and plays here and settles down into good writing. Aleister 12:10 8-1-'12

I did. Hey, 68.173.113.106, just a quick question. I was reading through Brent's method in relationship to finding the x-intersect of a continuous function. It seems to me that there is an error in the example (Step 2 off the top of my head) created by rounding off the outcome of a calculation erroneously - probably due to running on a system with technical limitations. The problem is that I haven't had anyone that I can double check my own findings against. What do you think? Pup 01:00 08 Jan '12

Here's your page Scofield. -- The Zombiebaron 19:08, January 8, 2012 (UTC)

UnBooks:My Tedious Day

A user read my article, went to VFH, and voted. Then, another user read my article, went to VFH, and voted. Next, a different read my article, went to VFH, and voted. Then, another user read my article, went to VFH, and voted. Next, a different read my article, went to VFH, and voted. Then, another user read my article, went to VFH, and voted. Next, a different read my article, went to VFH, and voted. Then, another user read my article, went to VFH, and voted. Next, a different read my article, went to VFH, and voted. Then, another user read my article, went to VFH, and voted. Next, a different read my article, went to VFH, and voted. Then, another user read my article, went to VFH, and voted. Next, a different read my article, went to VFH, and voted. Then, another user read my article, went to VFH, and voted. Next, a different read my article, went to VFH, and voted. Then, another user read my article, went to VFH, and voted. Next, a different read my article, went to VFH, and voted. By now, the article was featured.

Thank you for voting for UnBooks:My Tedious Day on VFH! -- Sir Xam Ralco the Mediocre 02:13, January 13, 2012 (UTC)

You're welcome. -- The Zombiebaron 05:35, January 13, 2012 (UTC)

Epistemology

Hey. This is part of what we're doing with Forum:stub and Forum:Ask me about my stubby thingy. Would you mind restoring it please? Pup 10:01 15 Jan '12

Ok it's restored. -- The Zombiebaron 22:11, January 15, 2012 (UTC)

Could i also get you to restore File:Crane_aitd.gif. It is used in Alone in the dark, but showed up as unused. Pup 01:02 16 Jan '12

Ok. -- The Zombiebaron 01:29, January 16, 2012 (UTC)

Happy Zombiebaron Day!

Can't believe I nearly forgot it again. --Black Flamingo 21:41, January 16, 2012 (UTC)

Iz wonderful! The front page glistens with zombie sweat. Since I'm here in the midst of a zombie and a flamingo, a question I've been meaning to ask and keep forgetting. Is there an accessible list of articles with "fix" tags on them? The lists I find only list the ones that tags have been taken off of, not the ones timebombed. Please, point the way and I will follow. Aleister 21:45 16-1-'12

Fixer tags

Thanks! Here's a list of fix tagged pages, in order of when they were last edited. The pages that are bold have expired. -- The Zombiebaron 21:47, January 16, 2012 (UTC)

You're very welcome, I think the green Sophia is actually very nice and could be a good replacement for our blah colorless potato! And thanks for the list. Maybe this should be linked in the blue box at the top of recent changes, so users can easily find and noneasily fix the ones we like. Aleister 00:33 17-1-'12

During the recent redesign of the box at the top of recent changes we almost included a link to the maintenance page, but I guess it was decided that it was common knowledge. Now I forget where the template for that box is. -- The Zombiebaron 00:37, January 17, 2012 (UTC)

Mr. Baron, I have become very confused and huh?aphied. Articles like Ginger. Prehistoric Jesus and quite a few other good pages are on the list. Lots of these pages are so blah to make my head spin. Others seem fine. I became interested in this when a user placed a fix on a page and then summary wrote something like "PLACED TIMEBOMB" - clearly with an intent to be a one-user VFD voter. So a series of questions come forth: Why does VFD exist at all, at all? I thought pages which were to be huffed needed to be discussed and given 24-hours to go before the users, but "fix" huffs seem to be used for VFD'ing. Can I take a tag off, such as on Gingers which clearly would not be huffable on VFD? Prehistoric Jesus? Kurt Corbain and Kilgore Trout are scheduled to go. Can I place a fix tag on a page, I really don't know. Dazed and unfused. Thanks. Aleister 1:22 17-1-'12

VFD and maintenance tags are two different methods for deleting pages. VFD should be used for the worst of the worst, utterly terrible, garbage articles that have been discovered accidentally and that really must get out of here right now. It has a maximum number of pages, a 24 hour minimum, a requirement of 5 votes for deletion, and due to decreased site activity it has become less useful than it once was. Maintenance tags ({{expand}} and {{fix}}) are the flip side of the coin. They are for articles that one user sees as being bad, but believes that perhaps somebody could improve them. A tagged page must go 30 days without an edit before it is huffed. That means that if you edit a page with an expired tag today it will be here another month before deletion. Therefore, hypothetically, somebody fixing a page could edit that page once a month without fearing for the life of their page. Also, to avoid anybody becoming a "one person VFD" admins do not delete pages with expired tags that they tagged themselves, so at least two people are looking at every page before deletion. You can add or remove tags as you like, but please respect the intent of the person who initially tagged the page. If a page has a {{fix}} tag on it, fix it up before removing the tag, and expand pages with {{expand}}. I hope this clears up your questions and concerns, but if you have more I'd love to hear them. -- The Zombiebaron 03:10, January 17, 2012 (UTC)

Still hanging around watching the GOP debate. Thanks, this answers most of my questions, although hopefully nobody uses it as a personal VFD. There are hundreds of pages on the list and, as I mentioned, it concerned me that someone put up a "PLACED TIMEBOMB" summary or something like that. Ron Paul! Aleister 3:20 17-1-'12

Why the hell did you delete my article?

why u delete my article.. what gives you the right? please put it back up – Preceding unsigned comment added by Steevo141 (talk • contribs)

Well, he's an admin, you know. Also, you can have the article restored to your userspace if you tell us what it was called. —Sir Socky (talk) (stalk) GUN SotM UotM PMotM UotY PotM WotM 22:08, 22 January 2012

it's called the Second Canadian Civil war – Preceding unsigned comment added by Steevo141 (talk • contribs)

I have restored your page. In the future, please remember to add {{construction}} tags to pages that you are actively working on. -- The Zombiebaron 22:53, January 22, 2012 (UTC)

Steven Spielberg

Gimme. Please. Thank you. ~ BB ~ (T) ~ Mon, Jan 23 '12 6:31 (UTC)

You're welcome. -- The Zombiebaron 06:42, January 23, 2012 (UTC)

Sorry for asking, Zombiebaron, but uh... why, exactly, did you delete that article? —Sir Socky (talk) (stalk) GUN SotM UotM PMotM UotY PotM WotM 11:21, 23 January 2012

Expired construction tag. Also, it has no ending. Unforgivable failings, both, by its author.  ~ BB ~ (T) ~ Mon, Jan 23 '12 12:44 (UTC)

Looks mostly finished to me. I could be mistaken, of course. —Sir Socky (talk) (stalk) GUN SotM UotM PMotM UotY PotM WotM 14:35, 23 January 2012

Also it lacks humor.  ~ BB ~ (T) ~ Mon, Jan 23 '12 15:15 (UTC)

Fix tags

My concern over the fix tags this past week or so came up when I finally took notice of how many were being saved (almost none) and how many were being added to the list (10 a minute during some minutes by maybe bots) combined with noticing a huge amount of red links on pages. Many of the new tagged pages seem fine and already fixed, like Chiggers and Newark, etc., so if you have a minute (ah, if I can catch your attention for a minute that would be 10 pages saved) can you explain why you tagged, say, those two in particular, knowing that a Fix tag seems to be tatamount to a deletion? (Fix tag to Fix tag removal ratio, 50-1?) Why not just tag pages that you know for a clear and total fact would be deleted on VFD, or when you check the tags on deletion runs just remove them from pages which may or may not pass VFD? If a page is huffed which would be saved on VFD, what's that about? Concerned and fermented. Aleister 15:37 23-1-'12

p.s. And, of course, why not take into consideration that 98% of the pages won't be fixed due to low writer response, blah, and people doing their own thing and not checking the Fix list which is hard to find unless you have a link to it. Few people will work on these, another reason why only total shit pages should be tagged and others let stand.

• Ok Aleister, you're obviously very concerned about this, so please bear with me as I try to explain to you what I'm trying to accomplish with the fix tags. First let's review some of the facts: 1) Uncyclopedia is currently at an all-time-low in terms of activity (measured in number of edits), 2) Uncyclopedia is currently at an all-time-high in terms of articles (approx. 30,000), 3) Uncyclopedia was most active when we had half the number of articles that we currently have (approx. 15,000). I believe that by reducing the number of articles, we will both increase the number of active users and the overall quality of the site. The idea is that new users browsing the site will stumble across redlinks and be inspired to write an article, and then another article, and then maybe vote a few times, and then hey we've got a new member of the community. The fact that nobody is trying to save 90% of the pages tagged is a symptom of the problem I am trying to cure. In an ideal world we would have a team of like 20 users fixing up pages, but we don't. Pages are often kept on VFD with users promising/suggesting that it could be rewritten, but many of those rewrites never occur. Fix tags say, "Hey, if you wanna rewrite this, you've got a month to do that." And not just a month, because every time you edit the page the clock resets back to 30 days. I'm not on some mad crusade to kill off most of our pages (I hope), I'm just trying to knock down some of the old dead trees so that the sunlight can reach the forest floor and allow new trees to grow. -- The Zombiebaron 16:11, January 23, 2012 (UTC)

  Sorry for saying this, but I think your approach is counterproductive. The reason why nobody payed any attention to the original {{rewrite}} tags (even when our activity was at its highest) was because so many damn pages were tagged with it that it was near impossible to pick one you'd like to save from the list. That's also why nobody bothers with requested articles; there's so many of them requested that it had to be subdivided in a load of subpages to keep it from crashing people's browsers. If you want to encourage people to work on something, the worst thing you can do is make the task seem impossible and make whatever effort someone might put into it seem insignificant. Now that all the maintenance tags have been reduced to two templates and many pages have been tagged with 'em, the amount of labour necessary to save even a small portion of the articles has become intangible. At least in the old days, you could go to the lists of {{idea}}s or {{Little Article}}s and not be blinded by the sheer number of pages tagged with those templates. —Sir Socky (talk) (stalk) GUN SotM UotM PMotM UotY PotM WotM 17:19, 23 January 2012

  If you've got a better plan for how we are going to increase our active userbase while improving the average quality of articles, I'd love to hear it. -- The Zombiebaron 17:52, January 23, 2012 (UTC)

  Firstly, I'd like to point out that "increase our active userbase while improving the average quality" is an oxymoron. The more the quality of our humour increases, the less it will appeal to the masses. Obviously there's a limit we don't want to go below, namely the limit below which articles are described using words like "crap", "random", "vanity", "meh" and "bleh". People who find that type of articles funny aren't part of the audience we're aiming for. But we shouldn't be trying to raise the bar too high either. When we start deleting eh-it's-an-okay-article-but-it-could-really-use-some-improvement articles because we want to raise the average quality of our articles, we're discriminating against new writers who would start out writing such articles (but might improve over time) as well as scaring away the part of our present userbase that liked such articles (which may include a number of good writers, them possibly having written some of them (even great writers write so-so articles sometimes)). —Sir Socky (talk) (stalk) GUN SotM UotM PMotM UotY PotM WotM 19:56, 23 January 2012

  (edit conflict, I have yet to read Socky's post) Thanks for such a detailed answer, although I don't understand your viewpoint at all, at all (Kurt Vonnegut would roll over in his grave hearing himself paraphrased on uncy. Look, he's made another rotation now!). You say that you and the admins who work with this idea are huffing hundreds of so-so pages on purpose, bypassing VFD, and creating thousands of red links which make us look reallllyyyy bad (imnho), in order to attract more users. With all respect, and I'm serious about the respect, huh? Wha? I can't wrap my head around the logic (although my head is wrapped around some wonderful things sometimes). If our page on Oliver Stone goes missing (I fix tagged it today) it will create many many red links. It's probably better to cut it down to one or two paragraphs, and then when an IP user finds it because he just loves Oliver Stone and needs to bath in verbage about him, he finds a semi-good stub, and says "I can do better, or at least just as good," and rewrites it. Wikipedia has well over three million pages, and they seem just fine with stubs (although not badly written pages). Why not make a grand compromise from now on, as maybe the forest has been cut down to a large degree, and only huff pages which for sure wouldn't pass on VFD. The crap of the crap, throw it out. But a vital page, or a well known name, at least let's keep a good stub. The wanted list, way too long and stupid. Why not toss that, and add an expand list for only those pages which are important topics, if we have them or not. The vital list that Puppy is working on seems a good start, as well as names like Chuck Berry and Little Richard and those kind of things. The forest now has light in it, as your metaphor is put (although I still don't understand the concept), so why not now change it up and all of us can come up with a managable important-article list. Make any sense? My typing finger hurts from all these words, at all, at all. Aleister 19:56 Chinese New Year, Dragons and stuff

  Ok guys. I understand that we view Uncyclopedia in very different ways. I am a deletionist, you are both inclusionists. You've told me how you would go about improving the quality of the site, and I totally understand. But we can create all the lists we want and nothing will ever happen unless we can get some more users. Please tell me your plan for increasing the active userbase. -- The Zombiebaron 20:22, January 23, 2012 (UTC)

  How does disagreeing with a course of action you've taken (on behalf of the entire community) mean that Alister and Socky need to justify themselves from an 'ideological' position. Simply put people don't come here because of a variety of other reasons that I won't go into here.--Sycamore (Talk) 20:28, January 23, 2012 (UTC)

  If you want to expand our userbase, you need to advertise the site more, so that people who might be interested in editing a site like Uncyclopedia at least know of its existence. Decreasing the amount of articles and hoping things will magically go back to the way they were back when the wiki had that amount of articles isn't going to help. In fact, you'd also be decreasing the size of Uncyclopedia, thus making the wiki less likely to be discovered randomly (e.g. through search engines). —Sir Socky (talk) (stalk) GUN SotM UotM PMotM UotY PotM WotM 20:28, 23 January 2012

  I see only one way of increasing our user base and that is by promoting the site. As far as I know it has never been featured in a news article of any major publication. We should do something which makes news, and last weeks SOPA protest was a good start. Uncy has been fantastic for years, and is now this amazing website with a very good readership, and now maybe is the time to go big league. No great ideas right now, but give me a minute (or 300). Aleister 20:34 Chink New Yer

  p.s. few minutes later. An idea, why don't we brag about our copyright infringements. We have tens of thousands of them. All for comedy, all for fair use, and dare the governments of the world and Hollywood and everyone to come and get us. Send out press releases telling them to "Put up your dukes, Congress", etc. Either we die trying or we might get some huge press out of it, thus, increasing users. That's one idea, and it sounds fun, kind of like Sundance and the other guy taking on the world and getting some good promotion for doing it. Did they die at the end? No one knows! Aleister 20:48 Slanty Eye Happy Day Plenty

  I agree with Aleister, say an average, somewhat listy article about a band is here, a guy comes here and he wants to read something about the band. Better have an average article than none at all! Also, I don't see how red links will encourage new users to write, especially when we delete their article a month after they've written it. If we want to exaggerate, why not have only ONE page, but the best ever? The average quality of the site would be awesome, its traffic, not so much. Mattsnow 20:53, January 23, 2012 (UTC)

• Ok I don't think I can carry on this discussion with 4 separate people at the same time, so I'm just gonna say a few things: 1) Advertising our site will cost money, we have no money, 2) We are currently hosted for free by a for-profit company that makes no profit off of hosting us, I doubt they will react favorably to us getting sued/negative press, 3) Currently most people who visit Uncyclopedia find us through a Google search, but also 95% of people only ever look at one of our pages and then leave the site (according to sannse). -- The Zombiebaron 21:36, January 23, 2012 (UTC)

  Advertising would be awesome, but I have no ideas to offer myself (being an idiot and all). To defend what ZB is saying, however, I often try to get people to visit this wonderful site, usually by linking them to an excellent article like, um... Playstation 3, for example, which they generally enjoy. After this though, they invariably click "random article", type something into the search bar, or hit one of the blue links - taking them (99% of the time) to a fix-tag-quality article that makes them think "meh, this isn't so good, bye forever Uncyclowhatever". That's what made me want to delete a lot of stuff... not saying it doesn't make me sad to do it, but sometimes you've got to put a sick dog down. That's what we did with my dad. --Black Flamingo 21:39, January 23, 2012 (UTC)

  If it's just the "Random page" link in the sidebar that's the problem, we can replace the link to go to Special:RandomInCategory/Featured instead. —Sir Socky (talk) (stalk) GUN SotM UotM PMotM UotY PotM WotM 21:48, 23 January 2012

  Socky, you are a fluckin genus. I guess that's what collab means on the site. Do what you say, and then put a random page click further down the page, so we can still do it. Black flamingo! Socky! Zombiebaron! Aleister 22:00 Slantyeye party day

  Obviously it isn't the only problem but I think that's a good idea. ---Black Flamingo 22:07, January 23, 2012 (UTC)

  Ok, I've added the link to the sidebar. I agree with BlackFlamingo though that while this is a step in the right direction, it's not the final solution. -- The Zombiebaron 22:23, January 23, 2012 (UTC)

  Well, it's obviously not the cure of the cancer, so to say, but it'll prevent the specific situation Black Flamingo mentioned. —Sir Socky (talk) (stalk) GUN SotM UotM PMotM UotY PotM WotM 22:27, 23 January 2012

  Reply to Zombiebaron's post a little higher up: There are ways of making the site more publicly known that don't require payment. As for Google search and people leaving after seeing 1 article, the way of dealing with that problem is to improve our articles (especially on major topics), not delete them. If we delete 100 so-so articles that might've caused people to leave Uncyclopedia without looking at any other articles, there's no particular Google user who'll think better of Uncyclopedia because he comes across less bad Uncyclopedia articles. You see, frequent Google users probably won't come across Uncyclopedia articles more often than once or twice in a month, and I'm being optimistic here. All you're doing by deleting the articles is causing the people that would've looked at only the one page not to look at that page as well as preventing anyone else of looking at more pages after looking at the one page. The only thing that'd improve would be the statistics of the popularity of Uncyclopedia articles found through Google search, but only because there's less Uncyclopedia to be found and that smaller Uncyclopedia is made up a slight percentage higher of good-quality articles. But because you're at the same time causing less people to actually discover Uncyclopedia, you're also stopping the few of them that might've looked at multiple of our pages from doing just that. So you're achieving the exact opposite of what you were trying to do (expand the userbase) to begin with. —Sir Socky (talk) (stalk) GUN SotM UotM PMotM UotY PotM WotM 22:22, 23 January 2012

  As I have already said above, in an ideal world none of the pages tagged with {{fix}} would ever get deleted. Instead we would have an active group of writers working around the clock to fix up pages and make them look as shiny as possible for when our visitors arrive from Google. -- The Zombiebaron 22:35, January 23, 2012 (UTC)

  I'm not saying that it's wrong to tag the pages with {{fix}}, but I'm saying that by deleting the pages when those tags expire, you're achieving the exact opposite of what you were trying to do, that is, attract people to the site. Also, as I observed above somewhere, because so many pages are tagged, nobody bothers to fix them. My suggestion to improve the current system would be to nom any pages you think really suck on VFD (so as to lessen the strain on the {{fix}}-system) and reserve the {{fix}} tag for the articles that could definitely use some improvement but not straight-out deletion (better than typical VFD quality), and in addition to that, to not almost-by-default delete the pages with expired tags. —Sir Socky (talk) (stalk) GUN SotM UotM PMotM UotY PotM WotM 22:49, 23 January 2012

  Ok, well then now we are both repeating things that we've already said above. If I can't make you understand how I feel deleting pages will attract new users to the site, perhaps we should just agree to not understand each another and leave it at that. -- The Zombiebaron 22:55, January 23, 2012 (UTC)

  Well, I'm quite sure we're both very sure that our respective opinion is the correct one, but are you saying that you didn't get any of the points I've tried to make? —Sir Socky (talk) (stalk) GUN SotM UotM PMotM UotY PotM WotM 23:03, 23 January 2012

  No I'm pretty sure I understand what you've said, just as I'm pretty sure you've understood what I said. We disagree on a few key points. You think redlinks are ugly, I think redlinks inspire people to write articles. You think deleting pages will somehow decrease the number of people who find us via Google, this doesn't concern me because I feel like those people who do find us will be more likely to stay. You think we should advertise, I think that those ads won't work if people see mostly shitty pages once they get here. -- The Zombiebaron 23:13, January 23, 2012 (UTC)

  You know, I half-agree with you. Once people get onto Uncyclopedia and start exploring the wiki, finding a lot of crappy articles would be off-putting. And those crappy articles should be deleted. But the relatively decent articles shouldn't be. And yet articles that only have minor issues are {{fix}}-tagged and later deleted almost as easily as really shitty pages. I don't know about you, but I prefer a somewhat-funny stub over a red link. Especially when major topics are concerned, because people are a lot more likely to stumble upon those. —Sir Socky (talk) (stalk) GUN SotM UotM PMotM UotY PotM WotM 23:56, 23 January 2012

  Ok. What I don't understand is why these "half decent pages" everyone is talking about are getting deleted. When I started tagging pages I believed that loads of people would make a few improvements to the pages that they liked, then remove the tag. I understand you've already said that the fix list is now really long (a few hundred pages) and that discourages people from going through all of them. But I've read all of the pages, so obviously it's not impossible. -- The Zombiebaron 00:07, January 24, 2012 (UTC)

  You read all those pages?... Wow. Just... Wow.
  Well, one thing is that people don't have all the pages they like on their watchlist and some people may not even check their watchlist regularly. Another thing is that, as we all know, humour is subjective. Something you find boring could be hilarious to another person. Likewise, something you might consider deleteworthy, another person might consider half-decent. Or you might look at a very long, crappy article and delete it, while another person may dig through all the dirt and find a lovely stub hidden underneath. I'm not blaming anyone for not liking particular articles and putting a {{fix}}-tag on them. It's just that I don't think deleting expired stuff almost-by-default, as some admins have been doing, is the right way to go. Also, people aren't always confident enough to remove tags on their own and/or they expect the person checking the expired stuff to check whether the article has been sufficiently improved. This way a fixed article may be deleted by accident. —Sir Socky (talk) (stalk) GUN SotM UotM PMotM UotY PotM WotM 00:25, 24 January 2012

  I'd like to suggest that maybe you should try to form some kind of "Fix Team". If I can read and tag 20 articles a day, surely 5 people can read and decided whether to fix 4 pages each a day. Over the course of today several users have made it clear that they feel that too many "half decent pages" are getting deleted, so perhaps those users should be the ones you contact first. -- The Zombiebaron 00:37, January 24, 2012 (UTC)

  Ah, it's more like tagging 20 articles in two to five minutes, and then 20 more. It's a delete/fix assembly line sometimes, maybe for months, I've only paid attention the past few days. Anyway, what a cool change, the Random feature! Nice. I will punch it and watch it like a movie (by the way, super recommedation, see "Hugo" in 3-D, a great experience and story. Supposed to be the best 3-D in relation to a story ever made, or at lest so far._ Aleister 00:50 24-1-'12

  Well, I'm willing to give it a try. I'll be mostly unavailable the next two days, but I'll see what I can do after that. In the meantime, could I ask of you two things? Could you please nom something on VFD when it's of sufficiently bad quality instead of putting {{fix}} on it? There's room for 8 more articles on VFD right now and some of the pages I stumbled upon on Uncyclopedia:Maintenance/Fix seem more appropriate for VFD. Better to get rid of a shitty page in one day rather than wait a whole month, right? Lastly, could I interest you in participating in this "Fix Team" if I manage to get it kick-started? I know you're a good writer and as the most prominent person adding the tags you should know best what exactly it is that requires fixing. —Sir Socky (talk) (stalk) GUN SotM UotM PMotM UotY PotM WotM 00:56, 24 January 2012

lol lol. The first page I got when I hit the Random Feature button was Yellow fever. With pages like that they'll be coming back in droves! Aleister 1:03 24-1-'12

• Sure, I can do both those things. When I first started tagging I was nomming many more pages on VFD, but eventually I grew frustrated with VFD (it was changed to accommodate a growing userbase, but has never been changed to better serve a small userbase). I would also definitely like to participate in the Fix Team. -- The Zombiebaron 01:35, January 24, 2012 (UTC)

Other section

Hello, I managed to recreate an old vfh page, could you go on vfh and look? I can't revert myself, it's the bottom one on Steve Irwin (yes, the one that has a 0% health). I forgot to put (2nd nomination) :S Mattsnow 20:26, January 23, 2012 (UTC)

Ok done. -- The Zombiebaron 20:28, January 23, 2012 (UTC)

Reply to edit summary

All I was doing was removing a little piece of redundant code. —Sir Socky (talk) (stalk) GUN SotM UotM PMotM UotY PotM WotM 21:17, 23 January 2012

Yeah but how is the code redundant? Before your edit usernames were displayed [[User:Zombiebaron|Zombiebaron]] and after your edit they were displayed [[User:Zombiebaron]]. -- The Zombiebaron 21:21, January 23, 2012 (UTC)

Oh yeah, you're right. I hadn't thought of that. —Sir Socky (talk) (stalk) GUN SotM UotM PMotM UotY PotM WotM 21:25, 23 January 2012

Ok. -- The Zombiebaron 21:30, January 23, 2012 (UTC)

You and these damned tags

OK, here's my two cents on these little jewels that you are dropping on just about everything. One, even though I'm not a regular contributor any longer (because I learned well and got a well paying writing gig) I resent you placing these tags everywhere and not having the common courtesy of tell people what you have done. That's like shitting in my toilet and leaving your log behind. SECONDLY, as stated in the thread above, you rationalize these tags by saying that usership in Uncyclopedia is at an all time low while the number of articles is at a all time high. So your remedy for this is to go all Wikipedia on people's contributions unless they are perfect in your eyes? That's just bullshit. In fact, it reminds me of the old chestnut "The beatings will continue until the moral improves."

You don't foster creativity by jumping down everyones neck - you do by being helpful and being encouraging, and that is some really lacking at Uncyclopedia since that writers strike thing a couple years ago. If you can be supportive and bring in new talent and let it be what it once was, then the whole damn thing is toast.

You say that "in a perfect world, nothing would get deleted" but anyone with a lick of common sense knows the world isn't perfect, and if we don't have one and other then you have nothing. I see less and less community, less and less support. I understand that "if you have a cancer you need to cut it out" but you have to know what you are dealing with before you go slashing away.

Let me ask you this, Mr. Hotshot. Have any of your rulers around here ever asked people who have stopped being editors and contributors why they stopped? You might learn a thing or two instead of assumming that you know everything.

If Uncyclopedia is no longer about having fun and making people laugh and satire anymore, then your little progrom just might have lost you another user, me. Way to go! Dame GUN PotY WotM 2xPotM 17xVFH VFP Poo PMS •YAP• 23:20, January 23, 2012 (UTC)

Hey PP! Thanks for sharing your opinion on this matter. I'm not sure how adding {{fix}} to a page is similar to shitting in your toilet and not flushing. Anybody can remove a {{fix}}. Anybody can request to have a copy of any deleted page at anytime (anywhere). And there's also always the option of actually fixing those pages. As the number of users grows smaller and smaller so does, obviously, the support that we can give each writer. We have no active members of the Proofreading Squad and Pee Reviews take over a week to get completed (usually longer). The reasons why users have left over the years are as diverse as the users themselves, but I doubt very many of them have left because "some dude from Canada spent a bunch of his time trying to improve the site". -- The Zombiebaron 23:39, January 23, 2012 (UTC)

Yikes! Just when things were getting solved. Maybe we all need a good spanking from PP (please). After all the things I've said, one I meant very much is how much respect I have for you, ah, whose talk page is this, yes, Zombiebaron. All of this is a side issue to how much all of us left in the lifeboat care about each other, at least electronically, and the passion we all obviously feel for the site. That's all, I guess. Hugo, 3-D! Aleister 00:56 24-1-'12

BFDFVF.... Damned iPhone keyboard

It was changed to accommodate a larger user-base but not changed to accommodate a smaller one. (Paraphrasing you above)

So, my thoughts on this are to strip down the requirements on VFD, and make it more effective. This will reduce the need to the arbitrary tagging and deletion of articles. (Not your words. Not mine either really. More just picking up in common threads in posts here and elsewhere.) It will hand the reins back to community control, and allow the community to decide what is worthwhile and what isn't. (The logic behind that is most of the articles being deleted are delete worthy - a significant amount of the disagreement is the perceived lack of control over what people see as their site.)

I haven't been here as long as you have, obviously. What can we do to have VFD capable of picking up larger numbers of articles and deletion based on smaller number of voters? Pup 03:45 24 Jan '12

Ok, I'm glad you asked. Back in ye olden days, VFD was pretty different than how it is now. For starters, we had a limit of 15 pages at a time. This kept the number of active votes low, so that when users came by to check what was nominated, they could easily read and vote on all the articles. Also, there is the business of the 24 hour vote timer and the +5 deletion requirment. Back in ye olden days pages got VFDd in a matter of hours. Now pages sit at +3 or +4 for days waiting for those last few votes. I know the idea of "VFD in a matter of hours" may seem scary and draconian to some people (even though that's what I personally would like to see a return to) so maybe that's not the best solution, but whatever we have going on right now isn't the right solution either. -- The Zombiebaron 03:59, January 24, 2012 (UTC)

I remember those days. I think that was a better system for a diminished usership. My only suggestion as an additional to this is that poopsmiths lounge be used for those times that we hit 15 and someone wants to add articles. The 24 hours I think gives the opportunity for people to have a say though - given due to different time zones a few hours could be 3am - 6am, or 1pm - 4pm. Pup 04:10 24 Jan '12

Yeah the Poopsmith's Lounge would have to be used for sure. In fact, it was just taken out of the VFDRules template the other day, because, surprise surprise, nobody has been using it lately. I understand the purpose of the 24 hour timer, and I agree it would suck if my page got deleted while I was asleep, but if that's the will of the community I can always have a userspace copy, and anything contentious won't be getting deleted in under 24 hours. Ok, so great, we both agree, now what? -- The Zombiebaron 04:18, January 24, 2012 (UTC)

We could start another forum (sigh). I'm just trying to recall if there was anything under the old system that was VFD'd that I didn't agree with and tbh I'm drawing a blank, so the 24 hour thingy is not make or break. I'm still just thinking aloud at the moment. Other than VFD/QVFD/expand/fix, is there any other way an article (officially) can be deleted? Pup 04:32 24 Jan '12

QVFD I'm also including delete on sight for UN:VAIN, cyberbullying, etc. Pup 04:33 24 Jan '12

Yeah, we will probably have to take this to a dump vote to get some sort of community support for changing the rules back to the old system. Also, you're forgetting that pages can be deleted by {{ICU}} and expired {{Construction}} tags. -- The Zombiebaron 04:35, January 24, 2012 (UTC)

Not to mention the {{fix}} and {{expand}} tags... ; ) —Sir Socky (talk) (stalk) GUN SotM UotM PMotM UotY PotM WotM 04:38, 24 January 2012

Got them - thanks Socky. Pup 05:38 24 Jan '12

(I put this on Puppy's page too, but he seems to be trying new things out and about):

Marry me. Oh, wait, that's another topic. But here I would like to formally recommend a new section at the bottom of the VFD page, Shite Pages or something, in which the worst of the worst articles would be listed not in a voting template but just in a list. The same 24-hour rule would apply. The way to save a page would be for an established user to strike it out and give an adequate explanation. If not, they would be huffed. Many pages should just be huffed by an admin on first sight, but this causes some problems from assorted assholes, and this new list idea would kill six or seven birds with one stone. Importantly, it would not require anyone to log on to vote delete, you just leave it there and it's gone. In this way the hundreds of really shite pages which Zombiebaron is rightfully concerned about could be handled quickly. Make sense? I am but the humble servant of the poop throwing monkeys 15:28 24-1-'12

Ooooo, I like that, I think.  ~ BB ~ (T) ~ Tue, Jan 24 '12 16:57 (UTC)