TheOmegaWerewolf wrote: Hey, is this conversation done yet? The fact that it keeps showing up in wiki activity is sort of getting on my nerves. I want to see the most recent comments/speculation/theories about the show and edits, not the never ending posts of complaints... Cuz I don't care.
I'm sorry that this conversation keeps showing up for you when you don't care. However, the reason that it keeps showing up is because I do care, about the show, this wiki, and it's community, and I would like to be given a chance again to join it sooner rather than in 3 months, I hope you can understand that and won't take offense if this continues.
TotallyTinkerbell wrote: What's wrong with your new citation is that it's not accesible.
I understand this and completely agree with your reasoning that we need to do things to make things as accessible as possible to people. However, it seems that there is a misunderstanding over the scope of the change I intended to make. I designed the [citation needed] template to give the same visual outcome on pages, so it will show up as [citation needed] as is current practice, but it also has the bonus of adding a category to the page of "citation needed". As such, there will be a category for everyone to see containing pages on which we are missing citations. That's helpful for both new and older users, as it's then clear where work needs to be done as opposed to going through individual pages and read them all to see whether or not a citation needs to be added somewhere.
Additionally, I agree with you that the nowiki tags can indeed be intimidating to edit and as such should not be used on a page. However, they would not be used on any page with the template. They were merely used on the Layout Guide page to prevent the template from working. If you put just [citation needed] on the page without the nowiki tags, the visual representation of the template would be changed to [citation needed] and the "needs citation category" would be added to the Layout Guide, which is not what we want. Thus by flanking the template with nowiki tags, the visual representation of the template will just be [citation needed], so everyone will know how to put down the template. To make matters even more clear for everyone, we can link to the template page itself, where we can then add an explanation on how the template is to be used and what the point of it all is, so that even those less code savvy know exactly what the template does, so they will not be afraid to use it.
TotallyTinkerbell wrote: In terms of the APA usage, I will tell you that I'm not even American, or and English native. And for me, the way Skyzy has done things is clear. I don't think we should go around and change everything because of something so futile.
As someone who's learning another language herself, I completely understand the difficulties that come with understanding every piece of grammar the language has to offer. As a native English speaker, I will also be the first to admit that the English grammar is a handful and sometimes difficult to understand, especially considering the differences there are between American, British, and Australian English (just to name a few). Which why, after I noticed that my changes in regards to the APA were perceived as unwanted, I asked Skyzy for some clarification in regards to how exactly the style is applied on this wiki. Because APA is a formatting style, it basically means that it's an all or nothing deal. While I can understand that it can be clear to someone who has been around it for a while and thus knows when the rules of APA are followed and when not, it does not make sense from a linguistic point of view.
To give a practical example, using APA selectively as is done on this wiki, using one particular format style for one aspect, and not for another, is like saying "We use American English, unless the word has an 'o' in it, then we will use the British spelling and add a 'u' to it." While that may be a clear rule to someone used to it, from a third party perspective, this is just confusing and perceived as an error or an oversight. If this is the preferred style on the wiki, however, then I would suggest making a note of it in the Layout Guide. I know that I have been told that not every practice on this wiki needs to be written down, and to a certain degree, I can even agree with that, but the way the wiki does things right now is a pure linguistic error that gives room to confusion. That was all I was trying to correct with my edits.
TotallyTinkerbell wrote: Also, as far as I can recall I remember from the page history that you went back and redid it after a respectable wikia user corrected your mistake. You should have just communicated about this to the wikia, instead of assuming you're write because there is a lack of anything in the guide stating you're wrong.
You are right; I should perhaps have communicated better with the rest of this community in terms of the scope of the changes that I was making. Which is part of the reason why I do understand why you felt the need to block me, but considering my good intent with everything that I did and the lack of real communication on the reasons why what I did was wrong, the length of the block just seems unfair. I did everything with the best interest of the wiki and good faith in mind. We are all fans of the show here intending to make the best wiki about The 100.
TotallyTinkerbell wrote: Who is about to become an admin on this wikia, so you should be wise not to call out things like 'ugly' in your conversations with them.
I never meant to be rude to Skyzy, and I was under the impression that I was not, I merely voiced my opinion which happened to be contradictory to theirs. I disagreed with Skyzy, but that was all I did. It is my hope, however, that the fact that someone is an administrator -or about to become on- does not affect that people can disagree with them. As an administrator myself on another wiki, I know the workload that comes with being an administrator, but that doesn't mean that, generally speaking, an administrator is always right. That's why wikis are build by communities, because we simply cannot do it alone. That sometimes also means that there will be disagreements of sorts, but the mere fact that two people disagree with each other doesn't mean that they do not respect each other. I respect Skyzy very much as a trusted user of this community and all the work they do to make this community better. But as I noted above already, that's also all that I am trying to do: making this community better. I may have different ideas than how things are generally done here, but that doesn't mean that my ideas are bad and/or unworkable. They may require some work to implement them, but as I told Skyzy when we talked about that before, I'm more than willing to do that work, as I just love this show and would like nothing more than to make this wiki even better than it already is.
TotallyTinkerbell wrote: Go ahead it's a wiki , this doesn't mean edit our layout-guides and question our usage of APA. This is in regards to content, which is what this wikia is mainly about.
I apologize again for having changed the Layout Guide. However, I only did that to have the Layout Guide reflect the way the content was built up, specifically referencing the usage of APA then. Because, as I outlined above, there is just a linguistic error in the application of the APA system on this wiki. So after I was informed by Skyzy that this wiki employs APA, I took liberty of actually announcing that fact to every future new user of this wiki, as to prevent them from making the same errors as I did when I joined here, as to make it clear to all which style guide this wiki employs. I understand now that I may have crossed a line by changing such a policy page myself and that it should be left to the administrators, but while the way I went about it was apparently wrong, the intention I had with my changes was not, as I believe it would be helpful to new (and old) users to know know on a linguistic level how they should edit on this wiki.
Content and policy are intertwined. There is no need for a policy when you don't have content, and you cannot have a harmonious content without a policy outlining how you need to write it properly. So that is why I assumed that "go ahead, it's a wiki" covered all the aspects of the wiki. It was in no way a deliberate attempt to question your authority or anything else. I was merely meant to correct what I perceived to be an oversight in the content -both the content on pages as on the policy page.
TotallyTinkerbell wrote: "but I stand my ground on the block. You can prove you understand the workings of the wikia after the block."
I know that an administrator can block anyone for any reason and any amount of time that they see fit. But for reasons already stated, I do implore you to reconsider the length of the block you issues. As I told Skyzy, I come from another wiki where we do things differently. As such, I followed the general advice given by Wikia Staff on how to get familiar with a new wiki: starting by reading the local policies of that wiki so you know what you can and cannot do there, since every wiki has it's own particular rules. I did that and then started to make changes as I saw fit with the policy you have created for this wiki in mind. As I went along, I gradually learned more about the ways the wiki worked by trial and error, as it has been pointed out that a lot of the habits on this wiki are not covered in the policy. So after several errors, I figured that it was generally helpful to convey those errors into writing in the policy, so future users wouldn't make those same mistakes again and the wiki would have been better for it. Perhaps that should have been better left to you to do, but I just wanted to help the wiki and new users out. And I would like to continue doing that -in an adjusted manner of course, with everything that I've learned in mind. Since most "ways this wiki works" can only be learned by being a part of this wiki, I would love it if you can give me another chance by lessening the duration of my block.