The TV IV:Proposals/Community Portal

We are toying with the idea of creating a sort of "Community Portal" page, similar to what Wikipedia has, essentially to create a one-stop shop for several branching aspects of the wiki as well as to maintain a sense of community. Would you agree to such a proposal, and what would you like to see on it?

Comments

1. Most certainly we need places for: creation requests, deletion requests, vandalism reports, style guides, templates overview, sample pages, discussion. (So that would include the current Help page and this page). --RoToRa 07:28, 14 Sep 2005 (EDT)
2. Also, any thoughts on an official IRC channel? (first raised by me over here) --Coolbutuseless 02:44, 15 Sep 2005 (EDT)
   1. I think it would be best to start the IRC channel on Freenode, where the wikipedia channels are. Since we are also working on a Free/open source database, this would be a good place. Something like [1]?? Jacoplane 14:10, 17 Sep 2005 (EDT)
   2. I favor #tvivwiki on irc.zirc.org, where the other SA channels are. But, ultimately, it doesn't really matter to me. --CygnusTM 14:27, 17 Sep 2005 (EDT)
      1. But this has grown beyond the SA community. I for one am not a SA member. But whatever, it doesn't really matter to me either. Jacoplane 14:38, 17 Sep 2005 (EDT)
      2. The channel #tvivwiki on irc.zirc.org is now registered --H9000 10:46, 6 Oct 2005 (EDT)
3. Ideally, there should be a fully-functional forum to develop a community that will help grow and maintain these pages. It will attract fans who watch the shows and hopefully they would participate. A wiki makeshift pseudo-forum doesn't cut it. --Minh 00:55, 16 Sep 2005 (EDT)
   1. I disagree. As a veteran wikipedia user I don't feel there is any need at all for a seperate forum (there's none for wikipedia). I strongly feel we should stick to using only one kind of CMS, the wiki. Adding a seperate forum would just complicate matters. Jacoplane 14:14, 17 Sep 2005 (EDT)
   2. We're opting not to have a forum because this will create unnecessary bandwidth strain. The forums probably wouldn't be used as a community outreach anyway, and probably would be a conduit for discussion best served in other places that aren't based on facts over opinions. We want to keep everything contained within the Wiki itself, which is why there's been no consensus on an official IRC channel. --Wizardryo 20:57, 17 Sep 2005 (EDT)
      1. I understand the bandwidth argument. Maybe later when this page is bigger and the admins get some money from donations etc. some kind of forum to discuss the shows could be set up. Like the forums on the old tvtome site. The MediaWiki talk pages are great to discuss the contents of the show/episode guides but not to discuss the episodes themselves. Of course there are the SA forums to discuss that but as someone said above, not everybody is a SA community member (me for example) and this wiki has grown bigger than just a SA spinoff site. --GKiller 19:09, 25 Sep 2005 (EDT)
         1. We can probably revisit this later when the Wiki has more active members and a dedicated community. We're gradually implementing ways to generate revenue from the site. We will never, however, turn into a pay site or start having intrusive ads that benefit no one, because we know just what a pain both can be. --Wizardryo 22:12, 25 Sep 2005 (EDT)
4. I've been thinking about this "Community Portal" idea for a while. What I want to have, ideally, is a fully integrated community. We can have all the stuff Wikipedia has, including things like portals, projects, collaborations, etc. In an effort to attract fans to certain shows, I think we can have "show" communities for popular pages. IE: Lost has a special Community Page where they can collaborate on and discuss ideas. Every single person in that community can tout some fancy "Member of the Lost Community" in their userpage or something. --Wizardryo 03:38, 21 Sep 2005 (EDT)
5. Agreed that this is a good idea. But how does this work? I'm not a big wikipedia guy, but I do notice that some pages (regular articles) on wikipedia have entire columns that show that it is part of a community portal. I think this would look tacky to have, for example, a table on the side of the Lost main page that shows portal information. How do you keep this discreet but still allow people to know about it? --MateoP 21:07, 24 Nov 2005 (EST)
6. This is a most excellent idea. I'll even try to undertake the ceration of the portal in the first place if you wish. It'd give me a bigger role in the community and allow you to toy around with the portal before completely deciding to accept/deny it. As to Wizardyo's suggestion two above mine, I like the idea of the fancy "Member" system - Wikipedia has much of those, like the "Community Vandalism Team" (people who fight against recent vandalism; I myself am a member). It'd really be a good way to get the community to have a real feeling of comradery. BTW, my work has died down for the time being and I'm back for a while. I'll be submitting another application request for sysop/admin status soon; I hope I'm accepted since I've been a long-time member of the community with some important changes/decisions behind me (not that I'm egotistical :-D) --LoganK 14:59, 7 February 2006 (EST)
7. I think we need something, some place where we can discuss things. The SA forums aren't cutting it - not many people seem to read the wiki thread there, nevermind that it's not available for non-SA readers. IRC is too fluid to contain coherent discussion, and the wiki itself? Well take a look:

Proposals/Community_Portal - Last Update: Feb 7 2006

Proposals/Spoilers - Last Update: Jun 6 2006

Proposals/Spoiler_Free_Episode_Page Jul 16 2006

... It's all fine and good to make awards stuff, for the 21 or so people who bothered to show up, but the awards shouldn't overshadow the important stuff in the wiki. That's been happening. This summer was allegedly going to be the time when we get stuff in ship-shape, but there's been practically none of that. --Stabbey 09:50, 4 September 2006 (EDT)

Probably because 8 out of 12 sysops do not edit, ever. Hopefully with the fall schedule starting up again, people will be drawn back in to editing the shows they like. --MateoP 10:24, 4 September 2006 (EDT)

By the way, I disagree that we need a forum. That is what talk pages are for. You make a forum and people will just start talking about what they did/didn't like about their favorite shows. The talk pages and proposal pages are what maintenance issues are for. If people aren't participating, it isn't because of the format, it's because they don't want to.

The thing I would suggest is that if you find that you're talking to yourself, take that as a sign that no one has disagreements with what you are saying and take action yourself. --MateoP 10:29, 4 September 2006 (EDT)

I'm not sure what a "Community Portal" is supposed to be, but I would really appreciate one central place where people could ask questions (how to format this, how to handle that, etc.) and make proposals instead of this fractured mess of "Proposal" pages we have now. I'm not even sure where I should put this very request, so I'll semi-randomly dump it here at the tail end of a dead discussion. —Naddy 17:58, 24 February 2007 (EST)