Guild Wars Wiki talk:Guild pages/draft 052508

Purpose behind the suggested changes

While in the past, the guild pages have been low priority, not even wanted by many, now that the GWW mainspace content is, while not perfect, at least nearing completion and will not need much more than maintenance editing, more and more people are finding their way to the guild namespace. While some of the changes proposed may mean some fairly drastic changes to some existing guild pages, I believe they are necessary to keep the guild namespace from spinning out of control. I don't feel the language in the current policy is specific enough. To this end, I have added substance to the purpose/intent statement at the top, and primarily strengthened the enforceability by outlining the allowed content and the disallowed content, rather than categorically disallowed, and strongly discouraged. I also added tighter restrictions on following the formatting guidelines.

Finally, I added a requirement that guild mainpages be in English, with translations, or translated subpages. While I know this is an issue of contention, I feel it needs to be addressed, as it has come up numerous times. Since Emily's response to what was being done/said over a year ago is used as the basis for not doing so, I feel it's time to revisit the subject. I believe her intention was primarily focused on how non-English language pages and their editors were being talked to and treated.

Now, let the discussion begin :D -- Wynthyst 04:27, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

I like the draft, but I would like to see some changes on the inactive guild pages deletion.. Checking all given contact methods is nearly impossible, especially for administrators. poke | talk 21:58, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Looks good to me too. --Kakarot 22:09, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Oppose. Am I misreading this: "...now that the GWW mainspace content is ... nearing completion and will not need much more than maintenance editing, more and more people are finding their way to the guild namespace." Or is this policy being suggested as a make work project for wiki editors. Because clearly this policy change would require more work from editors, sysops and guild page creators. I am against this as unnecessary and in many ways undesireable. Much of this has been expressed on the guild policy talk page where support for a change was lacking and now unfortunately we get to redo that discussion here. -- Inspired to ____ 23:54, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

I don't feel that support was lacking for any of the changes proposed, and no, this is not just "make work project" In looking through guild pages, I find more and more are leaning towards using the Guild namespace as guild webpages, listing meeting times/notes, profiling member characters, using outrageous layouts, and altering templates. Also there seems to have been an increase in foreign language guild pages that are impossible to monitor unless there are sysops fluent in all languages, and that also do not provide usable information for other visitors since it's unreadable. I was simply pointing out that as the mainspace content becomes ever more complete, the creation of guild pages is on the rise, and without stronger, more enforceable language in our policy, we will end up with guild pages that are out of control. While implementing these changes WILL create work for editors of existing pages, I don't believe that is a sufficient reason to leave it unchanged when there seems to be areas of concern that have been brought up numerous times. -- Wynthyst 00:05, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

All of the things that editors on this wiki "are doing" indicates very clearly that there is "not" consensus for preventing them from doing it. In other words, if I do something you can assume that I want to be able to do it absent any clear evidence to the contrary. -- Inspired to ____ 00:08, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

(Edit conflict) Guild:Soldiers Of Thunderstorm is a perfect example of excessive content, in text alone the page is 74kb and downloaded I'm getting 2.3mb - 2.8mb in size. --Kakarot 00:10, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Kakarot's example is just one of many guild pages that are moving more and more to the Guild webpage model, which was never the intent of the Guild namespace. As the current policy stands now, pages like that are difficult to enforce because of the ambiguity of the policy language. If there is such widespread want on the part of guild page creators/editors, they can feel free to propose a less restrictive policy, or voice their opposition to the more restrictive language in this one. -- Wynthyst 00:22, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

(Edit conflict) Extreme example of the size question, but not sure of the benefit of "outlawing" it. First this is not an overall size issue because the easy answer for that guild is to just put move most to a subpage. Second, even at that size it loaded virtually immediately and the size argument used to limit user pages doesn't apply to guild pages. Finally, I would argue that the editor of that page is opposed to this change, but we can always ask. -- Inspired to ____ 00:27, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

My guess is that the editor of that page didn't bother to read the current policy, nor the formatting guidelines for guild pages as they currently stand. The simple fact that EVERYTHING about the page is in opposition to the current policy/guideline is exactly why this issue needs to be dealt with.-- Wynthyst 00:47, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

(Edit conflict) Based on the current policy: "Guild pages should not use large or large numbers of images", the example I gave obviously exceeds this. You mentioned that the size argument for user pages doesn't apply to guild pages but since we are discussing a policy change that would change this I don't see why you brought it up. Guild pages are not supposed to be a guilds website, listing the entire backstory of a guild, listing a multitude of builds and listing complete profiles on the members is not what is supposed to be included on this wiki.
The editor of that guild page could very well be opposed to this change, in relation to the user page policy there have been people who wanted a higher limit as well as those who wanted a lower limit and possibly even those that wanted it removed completely but that doesn't necessarily mean that it shouldn't be included in this proposal. Also Wyn never gave an actual size limit just a more thorough listing on what is and what isn't meant to be included on a guild page. --Kakarot 00:50, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Despite a change proposal being written, the points that I raised before is still not addressed. We need to reach a consensus on how we should treat guild pages. Do we treat them as per mainspace articles and hold it strictly to policies on content and presentation? Or do we treat it as a variation of user pages and give more leeway to editors? The final answer to those questions is what will determine my stance.

If we want to make guild pages more like mainspace articles, then it means we have to make the policy stricter than it currently is. I would propose not allowing any image except a cape image, since a guild page is not meant to be customised or personalised by guild members. Also, subpages are strictly disallowed (unless they're templates), since they serve nothing but provide a workaround for guild members to customise or personalise their guild page. And yes, given the huge number of guild pages and clueless editors, this will create a lot of work.

Personally, if a formal stance could not be adopted, I would rather rewrite the policy such that it's less work for the editors and make it more aligned with current practice. Why? Because admittedly, guild pages are very trivial. In fact, I'd go so far as to say they're nothing more than a variation of user pages. The most frequent visitor to a guild page is the guild page editor himself/herself, and to a lesser extent, his/her guildies. It's only on rare occasions that "strangers" visit the guild page. The question is whether we serve that small subset of wiki users more by formalising all guild pages into a consistent (and boring?) structure and all text, or do we serve them more by showing them a "more real" side of a guild's members? Just how many players are actually more concerned with a guild's "philosophy" or "description" than how fun it may seem to join? -- ab.er.rant 02:23, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Formatting

Specifically, modifying page colors. I personally prefer that people don't modify the base colors of the page: the page background, the main text color, and link colors. These are things which should be determined by a user's CSS (default: monobook.css), because it's the user who is having to read it. I don't mind colored boxes to set off certain things, or colored text in some places to add a little flavor or highlight to certain information, but forcing a user to view the entirety of the informational content of a page in an entirely different contrast, not to mention the glaring disconnect between the "wiki navigation" and the page itself, is something that I find exceedingly bothersome.

I'd like to hear others' opinions on this matter, as I'm well aware not everyone shares my view in this regard, and this larger issue is a large part of what is leading to other, smaller issues. (Aiiane - talk - contribs) 00:36, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

I agree with the first example that you posted I find it completely hideous, but what is wrong with allowing guilds to use the background or tint colours from GWW:COLORS as these are not so offending to the reader, as they are far more subtle but only restricting them to the choice of 30 colours listed there or agreeing a new set of colours. For an example of this look here; its using the same background colour as the policy portal. -- Tomato 10:05, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps for guilds that strongly oppose this though, it should be allowed to have a main guild page which is all boring, miserable and looks like any other and then a subpage which shows it how it was 'intended to look' which may be flamboyant and over the top. -- Tomato 12:05, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

This is a special case of the bigger question raised at http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Guild_Wars_Wiki_talk:Guild_pages#Change_proposal_survey: Are guild pages to be treated like articles or like user pages. --Xeeron 14:07, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Lol, it's like going to www.yahoo.com to see a clean page that says: if you want to make a search, follow this link. :) Dmitri Fatkin 06:11, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

If "wiki article" status is what we want

I think the current draft falls in the same problems the current policy falls. It tries too hard of being "all inclusive" while at the same time being too ambiguous and leaving room for people "making points" with guild articles. I would like to compare it with GWW:BUILDS, which is a policy that deals with a conflictive topic, but actually manages to work by being explicit on "what the covered articles are for, and what they are not for" and only that.
As of my concerns with this draft on its current state:

• Naming is a matter of GWW:NAMING and shouldn't be here besides a small note for reference.
• Formatting is a matter of GWW:GUILDS and shouldn't be discussed here. Even so, we should specify that guild pages "have" to follow the formatting guideline, (maybe a reword from "Guild pages should not deviate..." to "Guild pages cannot deviate...").
• The maintenance section is questionable if we want to give guild pages wiki-article status. I think we have proven ourselves capables of distinguish good-faith edits from vandalism in guild articles, and since we have no certain way to know which users are or aren't on a guild, it's not really enforceable.
• I would like to see a change in our deletion stance for guild articles. As it has been said over and over, guild articles are for "documenting" the existance of guilds, and thus i think it's work keeping no-longer existant guilds as a way of reference, even if the guild is not "important". In case of name conflicts, an archive system could be implemented when needed.

As i said in other talk page, in it's current state this just seems a minor reword, not really the policy change i would want to see if we really want to go that way.--Fighterdoken 02:12, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

I disagree that formatting is solely a matter for GWW:GFORMAT. We've already had it brought up that the formatting page mentions that they are formatting guidelines; if we wish the formatting to be strict with the force of policy, it should be specified in policy. (Aiiane - talk - contribs) 02:16, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Indeed, it has been discussed before, and i agree with the idea behind it, but i think it's enough for the policy to say "Guild articles cannot deviate from the formatting guideline", thus making the guideline enforceable as a whole, instead of making enforceable just those portions of formatting we actually decide to include in the policy.--Fighterdoken 02:31, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

It's confusing for people who are looking at the guidelines page, which says you don't need to follow them all the time. It'd be better to simply specify in policy. Not everyone looks at the policy page before the guideline page. (Aiiane - talk - contribs) 03:03, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Actually, the only place i remember seeing that guidelines aren't to be followed all the time is in GWW:FORMAT (which is not a policy nor a guideline as far as i know). Even so, since policies take priority over guidelines, a policy stating that a certain guideline is NOT optional would make sense, and actually work as long as people who wants to enforce these things takes some time to keep users informed.

In any case, as you say, not everyone looks at the policy first so, even if you don't agree, it makes no sense to specify particular "do's" in there. Rewriting the guideline with a "enforceable" mentality, while at the same time writing a policy that is able to give such characteristic to the guideline could solve most of the problems (real and imaginaries) that we are having today.--Fighterdoken 03:34, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

The issue I have Fighter is not where they're specified, but the fact that the guidelines page specifically says that anything in guidelines doesn't necessarily need to be followed. Contradicting that in a policy, while it will indeed make the guideline "enforceable", also creates confusion because there are two pages that say whether or not it's enforceable, and new wiki users won't know which has precedence. I don't want a new wiki user to be confused and point to GWW:FORMAT and say "but there it says they're not strict rules!" It'd be better for them to not know the formatting requirements exist at all, be pointed to the policy page, see them there, and immediately understand that they are requirements. To put it simply, the base concept of a guideline is that it's supposed to not be strictly enforced, so things that should be strictly enforced don't belong in guidelines, they belong in policies. That's the entire reason we created "guidelines" in the first place, to differentiate them from policies - GWW:FORMAT used to be on policy pages and was separated to make that distinction. (Aiiane - talk - contribs) 03:38, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

I would like to point out as well that while GWW:NAMING covers mainspace article naming, it says nothing about guildspace articles. Thus, rather than rewriting GWW:NAMING I think that keeping the guildspace naming rules here is more appropriate (or at least more expedient). I'm of mixed opinion on the formatting issue, I would like the formatting to be specified, but I see Aiiane's point that only saying that they cannot deviate from GWW:GUILDS, leaves the area of confusion caused by the statement on GWW:FORMAT and the general idea that formatting guidelines are just that, guidelines. Though I do have to say that in mainspace articles, there really is no deviation from the agreed upon formatting anywhere, and when things are created that do, it doesn't take long for the community to bring them into line with what has become the accepted norm. I believe that if the guild namespace were treated more like the main namespace, the community would react in exactly the same way. I do understand that the guild pages are much more subjective in nature atm, only because the intent and purpose of guild pages has not been well defined within the policy as it stands. -- Wynthyst 03:59, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

I am sorry to say this, Aiiane, but users get more confused when suddenly an admin or an user starts policing what for months has been considerated a "common practice" (as in, no-content guild articles), or what has been openly encouraged at times as a way to "reach a compromise" (as in "mid-level personalization as long as the information is still where it has to be"). Users may openly ignore things like policy or guidelines from time on time (mainly because of not knowing about them), but those who actually get "confused" by wording or the like can be counted with the fingers of a hand.

Regarding formatting, as Wyn says, we have proven already that we don't need policies to specify the formatting of pages (as shown by main namespace articles). What we do is creating policies when the content of the same has to be restricted (as GWW:BUILDS), which is something this policy can cover without putting his hands in "formatting" itself, but just on the idea that the formatting is a must, if we really feel like "enforcing, or else..." it. On the other hand, if we go by the same treatment main page articles go, we shouldn't even bother specifying it and just go "enforcing" the guideline as non-optional, same as a "weapon" article follows GWW:WEAPONS or is tagged for cleanup without right to complains.--Fighterdoken 06:47, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

The problem is, for mainspace articles there's typically a fixed set of information being conveyed, and that set of information varies little from article to article within the same category. Any skill page has pretty much the same layout, every location page has the same things in the same places, so formatting is really inherent in the content being presented, and no one feels they have "ownership" over that content.

Guild pages, on the other hand, vary from guild to guild. Some may not want to list an RP-oriented background, others might want to list PvP accomplishments but could care less about guild rules, et cetera. Furthermore, many visitors see the guild page as "their space" and want to embellish it, often without fully thinking through the effects of some of the modifications they make, such as accessibility. Again, I point you to the more garish examples of color choice or page contrast.

Take a look at GWW:GUIDE. Specifically, the following quotes: "These are not laws that bind editors of the wiki"...."such a regulation can easily be changed if any other form of formatting is deemed better by anyone". You're trying to use one policy (GWW:GUILD) to take what is called a guideline (GWW:GFORMAT) and turn it into a policy, while still trying to call it a guideline. Policies are enforced, guidelines are not. It's that simple. (Aiiane - talk - contribs) 07:02, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

I think i understand your point better, but this raises a question. How has GWW:GUILDS been able to be enforced up to now using {{guild cleanup}} if guidelines are not to be enforced?--Fighterdoken 07:13, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

The same way any guideline is - by asking people to change it if they don't have a good reason for deviating. GWW:GUILD's "strongly discouraged" section adds slightly more weight, but it's really still a gray area, hence the reason for the discussion going on with regards to the policy and this discussion here, because people disagree on it. Since it's not policy at the moment, there's no way anyone could force someone to follow it at the moment, and sysop intervention would be out of the question, it's simply a polite request and discussion that stems from that.

Ideally, one would attempt to propose a clarification of the policy, then act on it. In this case, Wynthyst did that, but no one seemed to pay attention (or attention slacked off), so she decided to simply go ahead and take some action and allow people to respond to it as they saw fit. That's a perfectly fine course of action; on Wikipedia it's generally referred to as "being bold" - make a change or take an action and then get feedback.

A lot of the action to date (at least with regards to {{guild cleanup}}) reflects a belief among at least a portion of the wiki populace that guild pages should be regulated more stringently than with just a guideline. (Aiiane - talk - contribs) 07:23, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

(Reset indent) And just in some defense of my recent tagging of no content guild pages, I don't see it in anyway harming the wiki to ask these guilds to either add appropriate content to their guild page, or have it deleted, since they are not adding any beneficial content as they stand. And yes, I know this isn't really the place for this, but I wasn't sure where would be better.-- Wynthyst 07:36, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

(Edit conflict) Weird, i thought that the action to date in regards of that template reflected the fact that people thought the guideline "had" to be followed (even personalized pages still follow the format idea). Regarding Wyn's action, i actually thought it was more like w:WP:POINT since, after reviewing all the edits to make sure "no content" is actually "no content", i just realized that there is not uniformity on the criteria, which means that admins will have to go a couple of days reviewing several guild pages and deciding how many of them actually have "no content". This is just the same as that user who months ago went tagging build articles for deletion because his point of view was not shared on a discussion somewhere.

Back to the topic, there is something that the draft is doing right, and is taking out of the way the "good reasons" argument. Up to now, "just for the looks" was considerated a good enough reason for ignoring small breaches, but since the stance change suddendly and without discussion, it seems clear that there is no concensus on what "good reasons" stands for, and thus is better to remove such comment in order to avoid more problems. Even so, i still think this draft is too much of a reword and too litle of a real change. If, as you have said, the policy has to include what is to be enforced, then i would like to see actually more of the guideline copied here (general formatting diagram, location of templates, etc), otherwise problems will still arise from this.--Fighterdoken 07:49, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

I have to go to sleep now or I'll be dead tired come tomorrow morning when I'm getting up for work, but I'll try to continue this discussion tomorrow. :) (Aiiane - talk - contribs) 07:52, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Since there weren't any recently-approved exceptions linked to that 'excellent reasons' statement, it's better to clarify that point, or to have it rephrased at all. My suggestion is to affirm a statement similar to this:

• Guild pages should not deviate from the style and formatting guideline for guild pages in formatting or content without excellent design-subsidiary or lore presentational reasons. However, such statement will require another guideline implemented:
  
• Guild pages should not contain lengthy member rosters, strategy tips or character builds. All such information should be listed on separate subpages. Dmitri Fatkin 08:52, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Additional Section

Ok, how about this, rather than just an Allowed Content section and a Disallowed Content section, we add a Required Content section that lists the items that are required on a guild page. These would include the infobox, and the alliance nav (if the guild is in an alliance), and the minimum content to make it usable, such as a minimum of a guild leader name, or one other guild contact method, whether it's an officer, forum, website etc.? -- Wynthyst 09:53, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Again this comes back to the conversation on customisation of templates; would we specify that they must use a guild infobox or just that they must represent this information clearly in a similar format of that to the guild infobox? And generally the ones who would spend that little bit more effort to customise their guild page, and to use a template other than the guild infobox would be aware of this and would follow this.

What would also happen to the guilds if they didn't have the leaders name or something yet everything else was there? Slap a guild clean-up template on with 7 days before deletion? Seems a little over extreme perhaps, but then again if they fail to follow the policy on just a tiny point like that they are still disobeying the policy and should be 'punished' accordingly no matter what the severity of their crime. -- Tomato 10:10, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

That goes back to the formatting issue, and I think I have made my opinion clear on that, I would rather see no customization of colors since the colors that are currently used in both the infobox and the alliance nav are colors that have been approved to represent guilds on the wiki (see GWW:COLORS). Since no other wiki article is allowed to deviate from the established templates for these items, I feel the same should apply to guild articles. -- Wynthyst 10:14, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Sounds reasonable to me, as that would significantly help in clearing incomplete or abandoned articles. Though, the matter I'd like to precise is whether the guilds will be allowed to use a customized template gamma or not. Essentially, my point is that if it's not going to be implemented into the standard template, they should at least be granted a permission to substitute the original code. Dmitri Fatkin 10:15, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Again, that goes back to the formatting issue above, and how much leeway we want to give guilds in 'design'. I personally don't favor elaborate customization.-- Wynthyst 10:18, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

But what if they didn't deviate from the colour scheme? Look at this Guild:The Imperial Guards Alliance/alliance nav uses the colour scheme but is still a modified version of {{alliance nav}}, would that be acceptable by your reckoning? -- Tomato 10:20, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

I guess since I don't understand why they did that, I would suggest that a note be placed on the guild's talk page asking for clarification of why it was modified. -- Wynthyst 10:24, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Oh it's my guild page I created it, look at the location of the links they are to subpages of our Alliance page following this Guild Wars Wiki:Formatting/Guilds#Large guilds rather than to the actual guild pages which would just redirect them back to the main page again -- Tomato 10:28, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Well, since the alliance page does not meet with guild page naming required by the current policy, it is imo in need of dismantling.-- Wynthyst 10:30, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Hmm? How do you mean and besides we are deviating lol. The point was what would we do about such templates which the guild may set up as they want to add another parameter or whatever. -- Tomato 10:34, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Well, the naming requirements for guild pages specifies "All guild pages must be named with the full name of the guild as displayed in-game" and "The Imperial Guards Alliance" is not a guild name that appears in game, but rather the entire alliance, it is not in compliance with naming format as the policy currently stands.-- Wynthyst 10:36, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

(Reset indent) As for the additional parameters, no, I don't feel that the approved templates should be modified.-- Wynthyst 10:38, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Image:Guild The Imperial Guards Alliance guild rosta.jpg a guild that my secondary account holds, and has done since before that page was set up, I can even get you an invite to it if you really want... (dont ask about the pink cape >.<). But I'll think you will find that we are fine on naming, thank you ^_^ -- Tomato 10:46, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

But otherwise yes I like the idea of having a required section which goes back to what Aiiane? was saying, the rules need to be enforced in the policy not the formatting as they are more 'guidelines/help'. -- Tomato 10:46, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

You might find this conversation of interest to read too Guild Wars Wiki talk:Formatting/Guilds/Archive 1#.22This Guild article does not meet the standards set in our formatting section.22, talking about so called 'useless' pages and whether they should be marked for cleanup for having no content and missing out an ingame contact etc. -- Tomato 11:13, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Archive-related note: From my personal experience, I have to confirm that one week interval given upon the assignment of guild {{cleanup}} tag is not lengthy enough to let the primary article contributors fix possible deviations. I mean, the user(s) might be away from the game, being engaged in real life stuff, such as vacations. Therefore, 2 weeks is actually a more suitable and fair option. Dmitri Fatkin 12:08, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

That is more appropriate for discussion here, as this is not a discussion about the time line for guild clean up.-- Wynthyst 12:11, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Hmm... I just realised that the cleanup tag isn't even mentioned in policy or guideline. Since the inactive guild tag is mentioned, perhaps it deserves a mention as well, since we are hoping that new users would read this. -- ab.er.rant 15:13, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Changes to the proposal

Based on some of the discussion here I have made some changes to the proposal to better clarify some of the issues. I have also added clauses regarding the {{guild cleanup}} tag, and extended the clean up period to the suggested 14 days. -- Wynthyst 21:35, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Deletion

Separating it from the other discussions. How much opposition is there to the idea of not deleting anymore articles under the "inactive" status?. As far as i see it, it could prove to be "interesting" to keep the information of old guilds who are not anymore (even if they are not "certifiably important") as a way of reference for new guilds. By example, a guild who was just created named "Waka Waka" may decide to disband and recreate itself if they were to discover through the wiki that one year ago there was another guild with such name that was not famous for their member's behavior. And, even if they didn't, the wiki article could be used as reference for diferencing themself from the previous guild with the same name.--Fighterdoken 21:44, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

I have no issue with retaining articles on guilds who are no longer active, but I do have an issue with retaining pages that have no useful information on them; the mere former existence of a name is not what I would consider to be useful information. (Aiiane - talk - contribs) 21:46, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

This could also lead to naming conflicts if the 'inactive' guild has actually disbanded and been reformed in a new configuration.-- Wynthyst 21:57, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Currently-existing guilds have priority for page naming; inactive guild pages would only be allowed to remain until or unless someone else claimed ownership of the guild. (Aiiane - talk - contribs) 21:59, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Indeed. And we could use subpages for archival purposes under the main guild name.

Also, since GWW:DELETE doesn't cover it, we may want to include in the draft "no content" as a reason for deletion also. Since in a thread above the issue of defining such content was raised, i think we could solve it by specifying what kind of content is "not enough". In this case, i would go for something along the lines of "A page that only contains the minimum formatting with no content, or only with content that doesn't reveal information about the guild" (ie. "We rock", "contact us in-game" (without providing also a mean for contacting). In this regard, let's just AGF and think that if a guild doesn't provide a contact nor recruiting status, is because they are not recruiting at all (as in "1-man guild").--Fighterdoken 22:08, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

I think I have covered that with the changes I've made, but am open to whatever rewording works best for everyone.-- Wynthyst 22:11, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Hmm. I'd say that a means of contact should be part of the base requirements, since it makes maintaining pages much easier. It doesn't have to be an individual contact, but there should be some method of getting in touch with the guild beyond simply looking for their tag in random districts (which is just a tad bit inefficient). Even if it's just a website or the leader's IGN. I'd consider "base requirements" for a useful guild page to be:

• A correct guild name and tag (no illegal characters, within allowed lengths for each)
• A means of contacting the guild
• Either at least a couple of the following: territory, timezone, type, language, faction
• --- OR an alliance nav box for an existing alliance

Just my $0.02. (Aiiane - talk - contribs) 22:15, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Ok, i made some [changes] as per this section. I am not entirely happy with the way i worded "Must containt information..." because i feel it could leave room for things like "name+tag+contact+We rockzorz!!!oneoneeleven" to be wiki-lawyered, but still. Didn't want to change the proposal either because i just realized this is proposed and not a draft XD.--Fighterdoken 22:49, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Isn't that redundant to 'Must contain the template {{guild infobox}}. This should contain a minimum of the guild leader, or other contact method, such as a website or forum.'? I can see this being expanded, but not necessarily duplicated.-- Wynthyst 23:13, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Nope, not redundant. There is a difference between including the template, and actually putting information on it. The "must have template" is there to make sure it's not replaced by personalized versions, as seen on guild pages these last days.--Fighterdoken 23:16, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Yes Fighter, but what Wyn is saying is that the line which states it has to have the template, also already states that the template needs to have contact info filled in. :P (Aiiane - talk - contribs) 23:17, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Doh!, i missed that, but it needs to be changed, because the template is not really all-inclusive for the contact methods we would be allowing here. :). After all, we could have a "in-game contact" different that the guild leader.--Fighterdoken 23:21, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

(Reset indent) I would also like to suggest that rather than archiving historical guild data if a new guild is created with that name that historical guild pages be moved to a page Guild:<Guild Name (Historical)> so that people would not have to go through the current guild's page to find the historical guild's information.-- Wynthyst 23:22, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Seems good enough. My sub-paging proposal was just an idea, but as long as the old content stays somewhere, i wouldn't complain.

(added) So, as the information requeriment was added, should the "This should contain a minimum of the guild leader, or other contact method, such as a website or forum." paragraph be removed, given that it doesn't cover all the contact posibilities, and that it may be information not available in a first instance as stated in a thread above?--Fighterdoken 23:24, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

I would like to somehow set a minimum amount of infobox information to be included. I have incorporated your Historical guild suggestions. The other contact information stuff is still open for negotiations :P I would like to see it, but not in as redundant a form.-- Wynthyst 23:58, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Historical content

I'm thinking I would rather see the guild page moved to the historical page rather than just tagged, that might streamline the process.-- Wynthyst 00:00, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

That's exactly my point. I believe that when it comes to archiving, it's practical to keep the pages of only significantly-notable guilds, which were GvG'ing in top 20 or were mentioned some other way on the official Guild Wars website. In other words, such guilds must contain a history behind their tags. Dmitri Fatkin 11:20, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

As it stand now, all guilds that are marked inactive for 3 months, or are known to be disbanded would be moved to Historical status, not JUST the significantly-notable guilds.-- Wynthyst 11:23, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

To me, it doesn't sound as the right way to function. It worked fine as it was defined in the past, except that there weren't any actual historical guilds. Here are the examples of what could potentially be archived to that category in the future:
Guild:Black_Spectrum
Guild:Delta_Formation
Guild:Frozen_Agony
Guild:I_Agony_Realm_I
Guild:Virtual_Dragons
Guild:Xxx_The_Final_Thrust_Xxx
Guild:Scouts_Of_Tyria
Well, you pretty much catch the point. Otherwise, it's just more havoc and unneeded editing work. Dmitri Fatkin 11:37, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

It's not that much more editing work than deleting them for the same reasons as we do now.-- Wynthyst 11:46, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

There should be two different categories then: Historical Guilds and Notable Guilds. The second category should be used by ArenaNet-mentioned guilds, the guilds with gold/silver/bronze capes and should never be purged, no matter if the guild is active or not. Dmitri Fatkin 12:18, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Current Version

20:15, June 11, 2008

I wasn't sure which section this would fit under since it addresses the entire policy proposal so I decided to create a new section for comments on the current version, and hopefully we will continue in a similar format for subsequent versions.

Anyway Wyn asked me to comment on this version so that's what I'll do. Firstly I'll say that I am somewhat happy with the current version although there are a few changes I think might be worth doing. I definitely like the addition of a Required content section as the templates mentioned have been one of the more disputed things as of late, however I think there should be an addition of the word default so that the points start off as "Must contain the default template..." as no matter if we do or if we don't allow customization of them the default template should be used. As I showed in my example guild infobox it is easy to include customization (in my example complete customization) without the need to use anything other than the default template.
On the section regarding Historical content I'm not entirely happy using the Historical guild template unless we create a new one to replace what that used to be for - inactive guilds that are of notable importance to the Guild Wars lore or guilds that have been around from before the game was even released. There is also another problem that comes up with keeping guild articles indefinitely and simply moving the article to a Guild:Guild Name (Historical) page and that is what happens regarding images used on the page especially when it comes to the guild cape. We could simply reupload it under a similar naming as the guild page including (historical) in the name but would that eventually cause unnecessary strain (for lack of a better word) on the servers, taking up so much space; I'm not entirely sure how much hard drive space is available so this may not cause any problem I just thought it would be best brought up now than later. Also would this be applied to any guild page including pages that have a serious lack of info or just those that have a reasonable amount and if it's the latter who decides what is too little?
I think that's about all the major issues/questions I have with the current version and if I think of anything else I will add it to this section. --Kakarot 02:16, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

On your first point, the formatting issues are still up in the air regarding the customization issue. I think there is more support for not allowing customization to the templates since the colors are designated to specify guild items (GWW:COLORS) But there has been some ideas of possibly changing the yellow to a more neutral color. Also the idea of creating a set of guild page color templates to be used for design using a specific choice of pallettes has also been suggested and is being looked at. This would eliminate the garish color schemes of some of the currently disputed guild pages. I would have no problem including the word default when specifying the templates that are required as it would probably clarify it better.

I believe Fighterdoken's intention was that any guild page that conformed to policy as far as minimum required content would be considered Historical after 3 months of inactivity, or if it was known to have been disbanded either through editor's notes or other means. The minimum required content is still under debate. This basically eliminates deletion of inactive guilds. -- Wynthyst 02:28, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Yeah at this point I'd also have to say no to template customization or at least no to user based customization (as in whatever the person creating the guild article wants it to be). I wouldn't mind a few different options when using the default templates sortof like how the ArenaNet image template has variations in colour dependent on which image type it is used on or even how the Template:X-color has. Although I also don't have any problem keeping a single colour for guild articles either.

Another thing that I just thought of that could be mentioned is regarding changes to the font used on guild articles, as far as I am aware there hasn't been anyone that has used a font variation and maybe something else policy/guidelinewise already covers this but if not maybe we should include a line that disallows font changes as there really is no reason to change the font. God help us if someone creates a Wingdings page lol. --Kakarot 02:54, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Just as a note: but what if they will manage to agree it with the look of their page? :) The only reason I have personally gone with another set of guild space fonts is that I wanted to make it look as on the official Guild Wars website. Dmitri Fatkin 12:01, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

As Wyn said, my intention is to keep old guild pages (be it from disbanded, or no longer updated guilds) for reference only. This, of course, would mean we would have to rework both, {{historical guild}} and {{inactive guild}} templates to actually convey the new use we would be giving to them. And, since you bring it on the table, the rework in the historical guild tag could (if needed) be done in such way that actually differences those "guilds of notable importance" (as noted by the current policy) from the new "old guild" ones. In any case, i would prefer just putting all the guilds in the same sack if possible, to avoid drama.

Regarding "images" (and possibly, sub-pages), i think we could include a statement indicating that images wil not be kept for guilds considerated "old stuff" (maybe just the cape, if there is no support for an "all around image removal"). In any case, i am more worried about allowing the storage of the "written information about the guild". I don't really mind images (or other non-guild referencial content) staying or being deleted after a guild article gains the "historical content" status.

Regarding the personalization of infoboxes, i think this is something we should leave out of the policy for now, and discuss it as a separate topic in the respective talk pages. That way, if we want to allow a certain degree of personalization in the future (by example, colors), we can still do it just by modifying the infoboxes themselves and not the policy itself.--Fighterdoken 05:33, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

I think that for now however we really do need to address the customization of infoboxes as it is at the heart of some of the current discussions. By using Kakarot's suggestion of including the descriptor 'default' in the clauses would indicate that guilds are not allowed to customize them, but would allow for future changes to the infobox.-- Wynthyst 09:29, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Wyn's last comment, adding in the word default would cover it for now while still allowing discussion in the future. Also on a side note, I tried to check using diffwith but what is the difference between your infobox and mine, I noticed yours uses vardefine but would that allow us to specify only specific colours or would it act more or less the same as the way I did mine? Although as you said that is a discussion that can be sorted out later I was just wondering.

As to images from historical guilds, keeping just the cape and reuploading it as Guild Guild Name cape (historical).jpg would be fine since the guild cape is the only image that really needs to be kept. As to the case regarding guilds of notable importance I would still like to keep a special tag for those guilds that actually started before the game was released; or have actually had an impact to the Guild Wars lore which should be covered by the before release reason.

In regard to Dmitri about fonts, I don't see that as a valid reason to change any font on a guild page since fonts can easily be modified using monobook.css and if it's to a font that you don't want the entire wiki to be in then it probably isn't a font that should be used on a guild page or allowed under policy anyway. Font changes can be done all you want on a guild website but since this is to document the guild it isn't necessary to allow font changes. --Kakarot 14:37, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

I would be agreeable to an additional tag/category distinction for Notable guilds, ie those that have received Anet recognition or notable achievements. I don't however feel it should be limited to pvp achievements.-- Wynthyst 15:04, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

(Reset indent) What I don't clearly understand is why:

• Profiles and images of members of the guild should be placed on user pages, and linked. Rather than:
  
• Profiles and images of members of the guild, as well as strategy tips or character builds should be placed under separate guild subpages, and linked.
  

This allows a highly-ordered consistency. Dmitri Fatkin 15:07, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

[1] (Aiiane - talk - contribs) 15:10, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

I would have to disagree with that change Aii, I feel that the most appropriate place for member/character profiles is in userspace. The guild page should not be used as a roster, since membership changes, only limited lists of those officers/members to use as contacts for the guild.-- Wynthyst 15:14, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Same for me for the same reason as Wyn. --Kakarot 15:16, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Not everyone creates a user account Wynthyst. Furthermore, I don't envision the guilds that have their roster changing on a weekly basis creating profiles for all of their members. Subpaging keeps watchlists from being pinged, and an additional edit every week or so to a members subpage isn't going to spam RC or the like any more than it would in userspace. (Aiiane - talk - contribs) 15:17, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

We will have to agree to disagree and let consensus take it's course.-- Wynthyst 15:20, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

What advantage does having that information in userspace give? Edit: In fact, how do you propose user pages be "linked" without having essentially a roster anyways? (Aiiane - talk - contribs) 15:23, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

I understand what you are saying, I'm simply pointing out that if a guild wishes to maintain a full member profile page, it would be more appropriate on the guild's website, rather than their wiki page, and the members listed on the wiki page should be more confined to contacts only.-- Wynthyst 15:29, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Keep in mind that we're talking about a subpage here, not the main guild page. If you want, we could add some limitations, but I think that things like Guild:Soldiers_Of_Thunderstorm/Members are relevant to documenting a guild. (Aiiane - talk - contribs) 15:32, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

I have to agree with Aiiane here. If we directly allow guild pages to "link" from their main page, they will just start filling with links to all his rooster (and this probably may give grounds to the creation of userpages for non-existant users). I think it's better if we just limit the main page in a simmilar way to the idea behind the old wording (just mention the guild leader plus a couple selected officiers, not all of them), while also allowing the creation of subpages. That, or we could just simply not allow character bio's in the guild namespace, only referential information limited to guild leader plus a reduced (no more than 5) number of contacts listed (i actually like this last idea better). —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Fighterdoken (talk • contribs) at 18:23, June 12, 2008 (UTC).

Formatting issues revisited

Since this discussion is getting lengthy, I decided to start a new section to try to tackle the formatting issues.

• How much customization do we want to allow
• Should we specify a color palette that is acceptable for guild pages, and provide a template for it,
• Should we allow changes to fonts.

I think those are the questions we have touched on in earlier sections. If I've missed anything, please add them.-- Wynthyst 15:25, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

My quick opinions: no to fonts, yes to a basic palette. See fg and bg for examples of palettes; my suggestion would be to allow guild pages to change either the background or the foreground color, but not both - they must either be black text on a bg-palette background, or fg-palette colored text on a white background. (Aiiane - talk - contribs) 15:28, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Quick objections: just tested the basic font on my guild's space, and it looked blatantly ugly, and where we're coming is basically: disallow font changes, disallow coloring, turn the whole thing into a ghetto for guilds lacking any grain of imagination or creativity. If that's what it's coming to - getting to my note about which page says "bye" to guild space first. On the contrary, it could be like:

a) allow the official Guild Wars website font, which is font-family: Verdana, Tahoma, Arial.

b) allow the basic customization of Guild and Alliance infoboxes, in accordance with the basic palette.
Well, sorta something like dat. Dmitri Fatkin 15:52, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

The palettes would not be for the infobox or alliance nav templates, but for the main content space as a background and foreground. As has been pointed out repeatedly, these pages are not intended as an expression of a guild's creativity, they are for the purposes of documenting the guild. If you don't like the default fonts, you are welcome to make changes to your monobook.css so you can view the wiki in whatever font you like better.-- Wynthyst 15:56, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Please don't be overdramatic; the default font does not look any "uglier" than any other wiki page, and this is definitely not a "ghetto". (Aiiane - talk - contribs) 15:57, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

It wasn't, until someone decided to go on a holy guild cleanup crusade. ;) Dmitri Fatkin 16:12, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

It still isn't, cleaning up pages that don't conform to policy, and making clarifying changes to policy are good things.-- Wynthyst 16:16, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

All I can say before going to the countryside is that I see nothing wrong with allowing the customization of guild pages. Especially taking into account that not all of Wiki visitors are registering in order to view the pages or specifying how they should appear in their browsers. The rest could only be a remix of the song I've been singing lately. ;) Dmitri Fatkin 16:24, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

The fact that not all users are registered has nothing to do with it. If they want to customize the view, they're always able to register an account. If not, they should be viewing pages in the same style as the rest of the wiki. (Aiiane - talk - contribs) 16:28, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

(back on indents, since the discussion went to another place) I would prefer to not give personalization for the sake of consistency, but if it has to be, it seems fine to limit it to a pallete of colors, while also not allowing the change of font on size or type (because if we do, some pages will just be unreadable). In any case, we must note that the color pallete would need to be applicable also to the fonts, in order to allow the text being readable in cases where the background changes.--Fighterdoken 18:29, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Read my first entry in this section, specifically about limiting changing of colors to only background or foreground, not both. (Foreground = font color.) (Aiiane - talk - contribs) 18:35, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

To tell the truth, I'm incredibly amazed about how far it goes. We started with talking about permitting the customization of two specific templates and have finished with restricting the entire idea of customly-colored guild pages, along with severe language restrictions that will most-likely hammer dozens of existing foreign guild articles. I doubt that someone will be willing to translate all of those. Dmitri Fatkin 19:16, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

One of the main reasons for the language part is that if the guild article creator can't translate it into English (the language this wiki uses) then they most likely don't understand the policy/guidelines and could have the article deleted. --Kakarot 19:24, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Following that argument, I can assume that they probably don't understand what the Guild Wars EULA says also. Hope you see what I mean. If the policy needs to be changed, it has to simply clarify certain things, rather than introduce the new global rules which will make the existing community unhappy. Dmitri Fatkin 19:35, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

But that's for the game. Also isn't the User agreement viewed when creating an account in-game in the language of the country it was purchased? --Kakarot 19:41, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

"If the policy needs to be changed, it has to simply clarify certain things, rather than introduce the new global rules which will make the existing community unhappy." - You are not the entirety of the existing community, and a portion of the existing community is unhappy with the way things currently are. You may have started talking about just a template or two, but others have been working on making larger changes for much longer, even if they have not be expressed on this talk page. (Aiiane - talk - contribs) 19:44, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

For Kakarot: It is, but that's Support's "game". You don't have to understand it in order to get prosecuted by its rules. Are we actually going that way? For Aiiane: That's exactly my point, and of course, I'm not everyone. Yet, people don't seem to be highly-interested in it. :( Dmitri Fatkin 19:53, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

(Reset indent) @Dimitri - I would like to point out that the clause regarding using English for all main article information on guild pages was here from the very beginning of this proposal, based on many previous discussions that have been held here in the past year+. And many changes in policy on this or any wiki are going to introduce new global rules, that's the nature of change. The community is welcome and invited to participate in the discussion, just as you have been welcomed into this discussion and been listened to. You seem not to have noticed that each of your suggestions HAS been given thought, some have been included in the changes, some have not, that's the nature of consensus and compromise. Also, NOTHING has been decided yet, nor is this proposal anywhere near implementation.-- Wynthyst 20:35, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Heh, my actual name is Dmitri; no one's using that "i" for this name in Russian. Okay, and now to the topic: to be honest, I like the proposed draft even in its current state, it just makes me worried about those guilds which didn't provide any English information as of now. They have put time into describing their clans, and if the language change comes to effect, that would require the tagging of their guild pages. :( Dmitri Fatkin 20:54, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Implementation of any change will create work for editors and admins, as it does for any policy change, we have not determined how that will be accomplished yet, but I would suggest some kind of change notice tag along with a designated amount of time for changes to be made. No page is going to be deleted instantly due to changes in policy. The same would apply for a policy change to any other namespace. -- Wynthyst 20:58, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

I know I personally would do my best to seek out a potential translator for any page with non-English content (even if the translator is not the actual maintainer of the page) before marking it for deletion. I have no wish to lose valuable content if it can be salvaged. :) (Aiiane - talk - contribs) 21:47, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Palette-based formatting?

I mentioned it above, but I'd like to get more feedback on this specific idea. Would it be acceptable to the interested parties here to have a coloring guideline based on a set of predefined color options? This would allow some freedom in customizing page looks, while at the same time enforcing a standard of quality to prevent extremely garish designs or designs that significantly alter the contrast values of a page. For example:

• Page authors may, if they wish, modify either the background color of a page or the foreground (text) color, but not both. Non-default colors must be chosen from either the foreground or background palettes corresponding to the element which is being changed.

My greatest concern with color customization is poor judgment displayed by some authors with regards to readability, and using a palette-based approach would minimize the potential issues in that regard since the palette would consist of colors that have been determined to be okay for readability ahead of time. (Aiiane - talk - contribs) 20:25, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

I am not entirely happy with color personalization, but if we are going to allow it, then i would prefer that it is limited to a palette of colors for the same reasons you give. Of course, we would need to add the same palette of colors to the defaul infoboxes, but i think it could work.--Fighterdoken 20:45, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Um, this was just for background and page text. I really, really, really don't want to change infobox colors. (Aiiane - talk - contribs) 20:48, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Neither do i, but design-wise, changing background/font colors and not changing the infobox colors may produce some... weird results. Unless we allow both, i think it would be better to not allow it at all. But in this i must note that i have not particular strong opinion, so if the palette of colors is chosen right as to combine with the current infobox colors, it may not be a big issue.--Fighterdoken 21:16, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Not sure if you've looked recently, but {{guild infobox}} and {{alliance nav}} have both been changed to a very neutral gray, which should combine fine with pretty much any color scheme. (Aiiane - talk - contribs) 21:29, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Erh... nope, i didn't even knew they were changed. Did some test with a random page and your bg-color list and indeed there doesn't seem to be problems (on the other hand, i have no taste), so i wouldn't put objections now.--Fighterdoken 21:42, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Yeah I agree with the more neutral colour, I don't really think there would be a problem really amongst colours clashing... and does it really matter if they do make a poor choice? If they wish to have a weird result that's their choice, and yeah as I suggested up above in Guild Wars Wiki talk:Guild pages/draft 052508#Formatting perhaps allowing the use of background colours from here GWW:COLORS#Page_Color_Schemes as the other background and tint colours from the profession section could be too 'strong'. Also these ones by Aiiane again [User:Aiiane/Sandbox/bg]] although perhaps could they be too strong and more subtle ones? -- Tomato 21:57, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

I agree with a palette, I'm not sure I like the 'rainbow' palette Aiiane has presents, but I'm not sure I want to use the Page schemes from GWW:COLORS as they are on special pages already, I did a more white based set (not my best effort and not complete enough in the spectrum but to give an idea what I was thinking here.(edit) I also don't agree with customizing the infobox and alliance nav templates.-- Wynthyst 22:19, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Addition of Notable guild template

In response to the suggestion that an additional designation be made for those guilds that have been recognized for their achievements by Anet, I thought something like this could be placed on any guild page that has earned mention on Anet's Notable guild pages, to differentiate between them and Historical guilds. This would place that guild in Category:Notable guilds for easy identification.-- Wynthyst 11:57, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

Sounds fine to me, since that was more or less what Historical guilds was for before it was decided to change it. --Kakarot 13:19, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

Sounds fine to me. Agreed ;) --SilentStorm 01:09, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

I was thinking actually on not deriving too much from the current template we have. Something along the lines of >this<. But in any case, i could see this other "notable" version being used also for currently active pages, so is not a bad option either.--Fighterdoken 06:43, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

Well Fighterdoken, my thoughts were that with the changes to the way 'Historical' was going to work, there would need to be changes made to the current Historical guild template, and yes, the Notable guild designation should be used for active guilds, in fact I've also posted the suggestion on the current guild format talk page, as I'd like to implement it as soon as enough people sign off on it. It would help with the current policy for people to be able to identify guilds requiring 'Historical status' if they become inactive. If this proposal gets enough approval to be implemented, I think it's necessary to have this second form of designating the Notable guilds since the function of Historical would change.-- Wynthyst 06:51, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

Indeed, it's not a bad idea adding the "notable" status to currently active guild pages, but i would like it to be as clean as possible. We could try to merge your proposal (with special image + text) in both, the "historical" and "guild" templates. After all, i am not really sure if active notable guilds would be entirely happy with having to put yet another box at the top of their page.--Fighterdoken 06:55, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

I guess I wouldn't mind if they even put it at the bottom of the page, or simply added the category, if they have already linked to the official website. I would just like to see some designation. I've been through some of the list, and so far have only come up with half a dozen that would currently qualify. -- Wynthyst 06:59, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

Half a dozen is still better than zero :). I may try later to merge you idea for both, {{guild}} and {{historical guild}} and see if we can reach a compromise on this.

(added) How about something like this other as a way to merge both, {{notable guild}} and {{guild}} so it's less invasive? We could do the same for historical so, instead of having two or more tags at the top, we limit ourselves to just one. Image open to change i guess...--Fighterdoken 08:54, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

I like that. I guess I'm kind of attached to the image :P Makes it seem more like a reward. There is also the option of making the box optional for the editor, either add the box, or add just the category. Though this option makes it so much less invasive/cluttering.-- Wynthyst 09:02, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

If we go this way, they can always use guild template the old way if they prefer and add the category manually, since we would be just using an aditional parameter. And in regards of policy wording, is just a matter of changing "have", "must", or "should" to "can". As long as we make clear that the "notable" category and tag selection is for notable guilds according to Anet (and only those), there shouldn't be problems.--Fighterdoken 09:08, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

(Reset indent) I don't believe anyone is going to have a problem with this. I had already created the {{notable guild}} template, if you want to copy your code over along with the usage. I had also posted about this on GWWT:GUILD to see if we could get it added to current practice and start using it now. Perhaps this discussion needs to be either copied there, or linked? -- Wynthyst 09:12, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

Good point. Since this part is not really relevant to the draft, i left a message on the other talk page. In any case, i don't think this discussion should be moved, because random user would miss half of the information.--Fighterdoken 09:27, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

I like Fighterdoken's version as well since as has been said it doesn't require yet another box added at the top. Also to make sure I'm reading it right regarding Wyn's last comment in this section do you mean that the guild still has to add the {{guild}} template (still a required template) but can choose to manually add the category for Notable guild instead of using the new notable version shown in Fighters example? If so I have no problem with that. --Kakarot 12:21, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

Well, if we implement Fighterdoken's template, then I think I would just as soon have that rather than the standard {{guild}} template, since it will still only be one notice box at the top, but Anja pointed out that having the additional box should be 'optional' as long as they manually added the Notable category. And I wanted to indicate I agree. -- Wynthyst 12:41, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

That's what I meant, Fighterdoken's would replace the current guild template; that would also mean every present guild wouldn't need to be updated/modified unless they met the requirement for the notable guild parameter. --Kakarot 12:57, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

Help?

I was thinking that this seems to be important, considering the attntion it is getting, so I should see what it's about. But I'm being attacked by walls of text. Some tak pity, and write a succinct summary of the issues? Backsword 06:28, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

To make it short, the proposed changes currently in discussion (and mostly with concensus over them) are:

• Making sure the default templates are used, no exeptions.
• Allowing a limited level of personalization on background and foreground colors for guild pages, but not allowing font changes (size/type).
• Being a little more explicit on the allowed/restricted content. Putting limits to the amount/type of images used.
• Adding minimum-content requeriments to guild pages, in order to avoid the creation of "formatting but blank" pages (which would be A1'ed if they were in the main namespace).
• Extending the category of "historical guilds" to all those created with content, but disbanded/inactive. The deletion of pages because of inactivity would be supressed. The creation of a "notable guilds" category was requested because of this.

I think those are all the issues currently covered.--Fighterdoken 06:49, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

There are a few more issues involved in the proposal, such as requiring primary information to be in English, but Fighterdoken has touched on the points we've been discussing, and as he says we seem to mostly have agreement on them, just working out the mechanical details.-- Wynthyst 06:53, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

Yeah I think that about covers the majority of the main points we have been discussing although in regards to the personalization I think it was either background or foreground colour would be allowed so one or the other not both. However you forgot one thing, Kakarot is supposed to get pie :P --Kakarot 12:21, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

Since no one has seemed to agree on allowing color customization from the default templates, my viewpoint remains at the place of permitting the use of default-based custom infoboxes. Ironically, the whole idea of disallowing font changes has come later on, after the proposal to treat all guild articles in a strict wiki format & disallow anything custom-related. Then, why permit page-coloring at all? Dmitri Fatkin 15:36, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

For once, because it will happend anyways, so it's better if it is regulated instead of ignored (even though, i agree that it may be better a total prohibition, but a limit is not bad either). Also, as it was pointed in other thread above, the problem with used "custom" infoboxes is that they don't get up-to-date with changes made to the original infoboxes. We had this problem already when the alliance navbar was changed, and a couple of users protested when their "custom" templates were modified to fit with the new changes.--Fighterdoken 18:10, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

The later points all seem good, esp. the minimum req one (I thought we already had one!) but the first two seems like telling people how to present their guild. My initial reaction, not having seen the arguments, is that this is a Bad Idea(tm). Precendent is that it will cause conflict and drive people of the wiki. SO I'm wonder where the dicussion that led to this concept is? Backsword 08:05, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

It comes from treating the guild articles as wiki articles, rather than guild homepages. No other infobox templates or nav templates are customizable except in userspace. No other articles have garish color schemes and font changes, except in userspace. The guild pages are not meant to be super creative websites, they are suppose to document a guild and their achievements. At least that is the impression I have always gotten from various discussions regarding them. They are welcome to be as creative as they want on their websites, and link those websites here. Of the thousands of guild pages there are, this truly only affects maybe a couple of dozen tops, I don't see it as driving away huge numbers of people but I see the benefits of having easy to read, consistently presented information.-- Wynthyst 08:23, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

(Edit conflict) I don't think we can point a single place for where the first point was discussed. You may want to check Template talk:Guild#Remove The Box.3F, GWWT:GUILD#Change proposal survey, Guild talk:Soldiers Of Thunderstorm (where this finally exploded), Guild Wars Wiki talk:Formatting/Guilds#Customizable_colors and this whole page, but the discussion has been taking place also in other user's talk pages, several guild talk pages, and edit summaries XD. Also, please note that the current policy already denies the use of customized versions of {{guild}}, while also requesting "good reasons" for deriving from GWW:GUILDS (and is the poor wording of the "good reasons" what brought us here).

The second point derived after the first one, as a way to reach a compromise between "customization" and "no customization at all". And by the way, is there something in the wiki that doesn't cause drama and "zomg obbey me or i leave" shouts?. These changes are actually intended to clarify some things mostly, as a way to avoid the drama that follows when a user just doesn't understand the policy. And since we were on that, it kinda derived in the inclusion of certain topics that have been in the air for some time (like "language=english+any other", "nodelete of historic", etc).

Oh, and wyn brings up to the table something that has been in the air since eons. Guild articles on the wiki are for documenting the existence of the guild, and are not the personal guild webpage.--Fighterdoken 08:32, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

If guild articles are for documentation, why is Guild:War Machine a red link? Or Guild:Idiot Savants, or Guild:The Last Pride? Guild:Team Quitter, Guild:Team Everfrost, Guild:Esoteric Warriors?

We have to face the reality that even super notable guilds do not get a guild page unless a member of that guild creates it. So in fact, our guild sections is a space where guilds present themselves. Not a space where you find information about notables guilds. As such, I dont see the point in antagonising those editors who want to customize their guild page. --Xeeron 09:26, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

I agree that guild pages have to be created by the guild and it IS their choice to do so or not and the reason those guilds are not represented here is because they have made the choice not to. I don't believe it has anything at all to do with whether or not we allow customization, as we've been fairly easy going on that issue up until now, and they are still NOT here. I don't see your argument as being a valid reason for not requesting that information be presented in a standard format.-- Wynthyst 09:38, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

(Reset indent) This proposal clarifies certain points that on the present policy that weren't really worded effectively enough and led to some guilds almost ignoring the policy/formatting either without actually knowing it (language wise) or simply because they didn't agree with parts of it. While there's nothing wrong with customization to a degree, every guild article should be using the default guild, guild infobox and alliance templates since otherwise if one of these templates needs to be updated every guild that is using it is also updated and then we have to search out the guilds that don't.
As Wyn mentioned it is up to each individual guild to create an article to document their guild as no one else knows exact details on every guild than their own members. Also there have been many guild articles that were created with almost no content and then left which almost always end up being tagged for inactivity six months later and deleted one month after that. This proposal also makes certain content including an actual contact within the guild required info and if this isn't included in the article it can be tagged for cleanup instead of being left for seven months only to be deleted anyway.
As to the different types of customization even though this is best discussed on the respective templates talk page or better yet on the formatting talk page, this is something that really should be regulated otherwise we get guild articles that have for lack of a better word complete garish designs. When it comes to colour alterations both Fighterdoken's as well as my own version of the infobox have shown that it isn't all that difficult to allow cutom colour changes while still using the default template. Although there are still some things that need to be worked out including what should and shouldn't be accepted as well as possibly the merging of these two templates since if we use a specific selection of colours only using vardefine would probably make this a lot easier.
Anyway I have to go to work soon so I'll have to leave it at that. --Kakarot 11:07, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

And does it bother you if some guilds want to have horrible designs? It would bother me if (and only if) guild articles contained information about notable guilds that I want to read as an outsider. Since they do not, it doesn't bother me either. --Xeeron 17:16, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

I wonder why someone would want to have a horrible design, after all... except for the cases when done on purpose to annoy people. But, such incidents should be dealt individually by correcting the clipping/design errors on those pages. Dmitri Fatkin 17:29, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

"If guild articles are for documentation, why is Guild:War Machine a red link?" I've actually been hoping someone would get around to adding articles for such guilds; I've simply not had the time nor the dedication to do them justice. See Guild_Wars_Wiki:Projects/Guilds. (Aiiane - talk - contribs) 18:32, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

All this emphasis on notable guilds just boggles me. I personally enjoy reading ALL the guild pages, finding out about all sorts of different guilds that share GW with me. I don't feel that a guild needs to be notable to be worth having a guild page on this wiki, and I believe they have as much of a right to be here. I do however have problems reading guild pages that have made outrageous color choices, or have written their guild pages in foreign languages. -- Wynthyst 18:34, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Also, Xeeron, please note that we are not here just to please you, but to reach a consensus on the matter. From all those involved in the discussion until now, i don't think two of us share the same vision about at which degree should we regulate the guild pages design, but we have come to a compromise where a limited level of personalization would still be allowed under the assumption that "Guild pages are not main-page articles, but are not userspace content either". Such compromise can still change, but just dropping some comment like "does it bothers you?" is not really what i expected from you if you disagree with what is being discussed. Please note that this is the same argument people as Grinch, Skakid, or their supporters have used every time they bring their stories or images back to the wiki.

And in regards of the red links... remember that we also tell users that "the wiki is for documenting the game", yet is also plagued of red links. Same as for guild pages, "a red link is better than no content", because it tells interested people "hey, we are missing information here!".--Fighterdoken 19:06, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Hmmm, being compared to Grinch must be a new low point on my wiki editing history. Quite obviously, the wiki is not here to please me, nor any other individual editor. Neither was my post meant to say that it should. However, I feel it is fair to ask, under the assumption that guild articles are not normal wiki articles, why should you (or anyone else) outlaw certain designs that guilds want to choose for their guild page. Is that sence, my question is warranted: Does it bother you if they have a (in your view) horrible design? And if so why?

The comparison with what Grinch posted is quite unfair imo, since there is a huge difference between an ugly color scheme and posting explicit rape stories. The later DO bother me, because they strongly imply a total disregard for the humanity of the person(s) described. Nothing like that can be said about any guild page design, no matter how bad it is. --Xeeron 09:29, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

@Xeeron - Although I don't visit guild pages as often as Wyn does I do go to them on a fairly regular basis and not just notable guilds for exactly the same reason that Wyn mentioned above. Also I dislike seeing anything with a horrible design especially when it comes to the colour choices the creator has made and sometimes leave certain websites simply because they look tacky with their colour choice/design; although this view might come more from my website design experience. As to my view on customization at the beginning I was fine with allowing some level of customization which is the reason I created that version of the guild infobox I mentioned above since that change would of still used the default template while allowing it to be changed slightly. However after seeing exactly how much some people wanted to allow; it seemed like it was moving closer and closer to changing guild articles into guild websites; my view has slowly changed. Although if we were to use a merged version of mine and Fighterdokens designs as well as adding a limited number of specific colours I and possibly others would have no problem with that since it would be a reasonable compromise. --Kakarot 21:45, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

So why do you want to force guilds to use the color scheme that you (or the small group of editors that discuss here) prefer over the color scheme that the guild prefers? For wiki articles, the reasoning is obvious: They are designed for the general public, so it should be readable by the general public. The same goes for any kind of talk pages. And you could argue that articles about notable guilds that are encyclopaedic would qualify as well. However, and that is why I pointed it out, those do not exist here. As Wyn correctly stated, every guild is allowed to have a guild page here. And virtually 100% of guild pages are maintained by guild members, that is, they are not encyclopaedic. They describe the guild in the way the guild wants to present itself to outsiders, not fact based and with a neutral point of view. If any guild wants to present itself with a non-standart color scheme, with what reason are you to impose your preference on them? --Xeeron 09:29, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

So you are saying that the guild pages are not meant for the general public to read? I guess I totally fail to see the logic there.-- Wynthyst 09:36, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

Feel free to crucify me for that, but yes, I do think that guild pages are designed to be read by those that the guild in questions wants them to read, which might only be a part of the general public. Of course, the general public is not forbidden to read any guild page, but unlike normal wiki articles, it is not always the intended audience. Very much alike to user pages. --Xeeron 09:43, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

My original design did allow the guild to choose the colour scheme for the infobox (a change that could also be applied to the alliance template), and I still would like some customization but restricting it to certain colours doesn't mean only colours that any one person likes are chosen it's colours that have been decided by the community on the respective talk page which are accessible to everyone and can be commented on by anyone. Based on the two example colour lists Aiiane has created for foreground and background; a guild can use either but not both to reduce the possibility of bad combinations; which give a fairly decent number of choices that should go well with most colour schemes while still allowing it to restrict any colour combinations that clash with each other or make it unreadable to a prospective joiner. This whole issue came about because guilds were somewhat ignoring the guidelines and/or the policy; for this second one this was partly because of the poor wording of said policy; including using customized versions of the required templates.

Also if guild pages are not meant for general public to read why have them, one of the required items is an in-game contact (usually the leader) which is supposed to allow people to join the guild and this can include almost anyone. Another reason for this policy proposal is to properly word the restriction on number of images otherwise we get guilds like this one that include nearly 2mb in images alone as well as guilds that are the other way including excessive text which really has no place on a guild article or at least on the main article and lastly guilds that do both. --Kakarot 14:12, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

Also if guild pages are not meant for general public to read why have them.

The simple answer to that one is: Why not? People are happy to make their guild page, so as long as it doesn't attack anyone or interferes with the way the rest of the wiki works, there is no harm done. It seems clear that the majority here argues for more regulation, so my point might be moot, all I want to point out is that when forbidding guilds to use whatever color they want, we lose a lot (lots of angry users who have their guild page altered from the way they want it to look like or deleted), while gaining little. --Xeeron 15:35, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

I guess I will have to say we will have to agree to disagree because the vast majority of guild pages here have no problem staying within formatting guidelines. I also feel that this policy proposal has been more than fair in inviting the community (most especially the guild page editors since a notice regarding it was added to the {{guild}} notice box so it appears on EVERY guild page) to participate in discussion. So far there has only been one editor indicating he will remove his guild page if we choose to restrict design/customization. I will reiterate that I am against customizing the required templates, but if I am overridden, that's consensus at work. -- Wynthyst 15:52, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

(Edit conflict) Actually I don't think we would lose a lot of users with adding a restriction on colour changes, although if we continue with the current suggestion; allowing certain colours; it would actually be relaxing the rules a bit since presently guilds should use the default templates with the default colours only. Although it presently says should rather than must using the default template allows all guilds to be updated; without the need to manually seek out and modify; if we change the template as has recently been done with the addition of the notable guild parameter. For the most part most guild articles do follow the policy/guidelines and use the default templates, some may suggest that this is because they were changed by non-guild members but from what I have seen while deleting for inactivity/cleanup almost all of them were created in accordance to this rather than changed at a later time. Overall it really is only a small handful of guilds that have deviated from this formatting, at least one even went so far as to use a customized version of the {{guild}} template which current policy states that the default must be used -> "All guild pages must contain the template {{guild}} at the top ...". --Kakarot 15:57, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

Well, having ploughed through yet more massive piles of text (WotD: Succinct) the main thrust seems to be this:

We are faced with a dichotomy, we must now choose between having guild pages as either articles or guild websites, and of those articles are the desirable outcome (or at least lesser evil).

What I'm missing is answeres to this:

1. Why are those two the only choices now? I see a lot of talk about which one, but the rather strong assumption that they are now our only choices is never explained.
2. If articles is where we are heading, and the justification for this change, why does this policy proposal not simply make it so, and even sometimes move away from that direction?

Backsword 11:46, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

I wrote this policy proposal from my point of view that guild articles should be treated more like wiki articles, because that is how I feel on the subject. I thought I made my reasons and purposes for the changes clear in my opening statement here, but I may have failed at that. The discussion that has gone on since has brought about changes to my original proposal based on compromise that will hopefully lead to consensus. While the discussion of which way do we want to treat wiki pages was presented on the current policy talk page, virtually no one commented on it, and it appeared to be going nowhere, so I put forth the proposal, and it did get commentary, and discussion, and this is what we've come up with. If you have other ideas of how you would like to see guild pages treated, be my guest to voice them, if you disagree with parts of this proposal, say it in plain language so we can discuss it and resolve it, stop asking what are basically rehtorical questions that don't seem to really add much to the discussion. Sorry to be blunt, but this discussion has been going on for a few weeks now, and your participation has always been asked for.-- Wynthyst 12:29, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

My issues with this proposal are structural, not about a particular part. My questions go directly towards trying to understand why the proposal is in the state it is. The current situation reminds me about how things were before the old user page policy, and how that policy was shaped. And that mostly brought pain to the wiki. I'd like to think we are able to learn from past mistake.

It is true that discussions on this wiki often dies out before a clear result happens, which is unfortunatly, and it is a very good thing that someone takes the initiative. But it seems followups have not produced that clear reult either, so we have a sitution of means being debated, without having ends to strive for. At least, that is my reading from the limited things I've seen. Backsword 12:37, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

I guess I don't understand exactly what you mean by 'the state it is in' as I don't see anything amiss. It clarifies several issues that make the current policy virtually impossible to enforce as a policy, by making clearer what the intention of the guild namespace is, what content is and is not allowed, changes the way inactive guild pages are handled, and hopefully by the time this discussion has finished what kind of formatting is acceptable and what isn't. If you could point to the specific areas you don't understand, or share with me the 'past mistakes' you are wanting to avoid (preferably on my talk page) I would like to avoid them as well. While not being totally pleased with the numbers of people who have been participating in this discussion, I do feel that everything that can be done to get people involved has been, and I am pleased that discussion is at least continuing, and appears to be progressing towards consensus.-- Wynthyst 16:49, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

I think there are several misconceptions here. For starters, one of the points is not "choosing between wiki article or guild webpage", but chossing between "wiki article, or not wiki article". Since not wiki article seems to be the prefered alternative, but also taking in consideration that the current policy, common usage, and users and admins (through cleanup deletions) already follow a "not webpage, nor blank-page" stance (mostly due to the "not forum nor noticeboard" statement), the proposal in this regard is just trying to reach a middle point. About this, GWWT:GUILD#Change proposal survey offers more background info.

Also, this proposal not only deals with formatting and the color selection (which, sadly, some users have raised as the main issue in discussion), but also with things as archiving the relevant content, adding minimum content restrictions as to ensure the archived content is something besides a namepage (mostly, because at the moment such content is archived, the chances of improving it are near zero), some rewords as to clarify the meaning of the policy to avoid confusions from users, etc. We could pretty much leave the whole "webpage" issue aside, and the proposal would still be an improvement (from my point of view) over what we currently have.

In any case, if you feel we should offer a totally new alternative (like opening the Guild: namespace a la User:, or just "not caring" in the same way we used to do until one month ago) you could redact a new proposal, but note that it would need to be a total rewrite of the policy. Even more, at that point it would probably be better to just go to Anet and request for them to offer a guild page hosting service instead (which is, imo, a better option overall).--Fighterdoken 20:37, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

Misconceptions, aye. I'm not advocating the dichotomy, but enquiring it's origin. I don't see where the assumption you make in your third paragraph, that this is the only alternative to wiki article now, come from.

Additionally, I'd say the formating debate is central since it's a exteremly drastic change, not only from current policy but also from this wiki's general culture, and the other changes are mainly in the shape of gradual, noncontroversial improvement on the existing structure. Thus, it's hardly surprising, and not something to lament. If anything, a wiki where noone cared would be in a much worse shape. Backsword 13:05, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Re old policy: The one I'm thinking about was also a long rambling document attemting detailed control of other editors, often ones new to the wiki. This led to a scenario where people would join the wiki, and their first contact with the community was someone showing up on their talkpage to tell them to fuck o undo all their work. Such unfriendlyness led to intermittent drama and caused people who could otherwise have become valuable editors to leave the wiki. I could easily foresee a repeat with this policy, and this only from the structure and the sort of users likely to be affected most.

Of course, there are other, more genral, issues with writing policy like this, such as the not unsignificant possibility of it becoming internaly contradictory. I find it much preferable to be clear and prinicipled, addressing only what needs addressing to solve the problems the policy is meant to alleviate. Do note that I in no way want to hold up current guild policy as a paragon of utility and efficiency. But at least it had a consensus paradigm and points were added towards issues predicted. (not all of which came true)

Perhaps I've been unsuccessful in conveying the discrepancy I percieve between claimed motivation (or should I write "justification given" here?) with the actual state of the proposal. (And 'state' was not intended to iteself connote a negative view, tho' I make no secret of having one.). I should probably examplify, but in order to avoid it drowning in my own text mass, I'll do so seperately. Backsword 16:46, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

As I was one of the new users that got the fuck o "undo all their work" message when I first arrived I understand your concern. I don't agree with the tactics of hard line policy for new wiki users, however, I do think it's important that they at least be made aware that ALL areas of this wiki are regulated by policies and that all pages here (with the possible exceptions of userpages) are effectively owned by the community. Perhaps I've been unsuccessful in conveying what I want to see coming from this, but I believe that some parts of the formatting issues need to be covered by the policy to make them enforceable since guidelines aren't. I believe that establishing a minimum requirement for content beyond the template formatting is also important, or the namespace will once again become cluttered with blank pages (more than 500 such pages have been deleted in the past week) and since this proposal changes how guild pages are dealt with through time (no more deletions for inactivity) it becomes the content that determines deletion.

The other problem that I wanted to address with this proposal is that of language. This IS the English language wiki, and I don't believe it serves the community in general to have guild pages that are solely in another language. It makes them hard to regulate and makes them not friendly to the community at large (who I believe should be served first and foremost). I do understand that this is a global community, but English is the language that was chosen for the content, and Guild pages ARE content.

As I said before if you have specific areas of this proposal that you don't agree with, let's talk about them in specifics, try to come to some agreement. I think those of us who have been participating in this discussion have done a good job at balancing out our differences with compromises that have addressed everyone's concerns.-- Wynthyst 17:15, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Getting this off the giant side track

Here are the issues I feel are still in need of some discussion/agreement: (please add your comments under the proper section so we can keep this somewhat clear)-- Wynthyst 16:09, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

Formatting/Customization

• palette based color customization for either background or foreground colors

Given that I proposed the palette idea I think it's safe to assume I approve of it. :P (Aiiane - talk - contribs) 21:54, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

If we do allow customization this is to me a preferable method over an allow anything approach. --Kakarot 03:03, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

• adding parameters to the required templates for color customization

I would be happier if we didn't allow customization at this point (for the sake of making the articles encyclopedic-like), but limiting it to a color palette is not a bad option either. I Really wouldn't like to give total liberty on this anymore because, as it has been shown lately, this quickly derivates in Guilds requesting the removal or the personalization of "that ugly box at the top" ({{guild}}), but if we go the "Xeeron's way", we may need to include the guild template into the list of things to allow color customization. If going that way, we may not even have to mention this in the policy.--Fighterdoken 18:34, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

I'd prefer to not allow customization of the templates either - they're meant to stand out as a consistency across guild pages. The previous color for the template (yellow) clashed with some desired page coloring, but the new color (gray) was specifically chosen so that it won't create color conflicts. (Aiiane - talk - contribs) 20:49, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

I do not wish to see the required templates customized, but after going through so many of the guild pages, there are some design styles that I do really like, that I think allowing for a 3 color palette rather than 2 might make easier. I have been trying to find an example to link but basically they are the ones that use the dark 'bar' for the subheadings on a white background. I think offering a background color, a font color, or a highlight color might make that kind of page design better, the ones I've seen that stick in my mind have been using white text on a maroon bar for the subheadings, black text on white for the rest of the page. As soon as I can find one, I'll link it. -- Wynthyst 22:00, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

I'd say that'd fall within the foreground colors option - we could add a note to the foreground palette, if you wanted, stating that foreground colors could also be used for second headers with white text on them. (Aiiane - talk - contribs) 22:02, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

(Edit conflict) Please, regarding this, we REALLY need to leave infoboxes (and all the tags in general) out of the discussion for now. We should focus first on deciding if we are going to allow or not color customization for the article as a whole. After that, if we decide that it will be allowed (be it free for all or with a color palette), we can then move the discussion to the infobox talk pages or the formatting guideline and decide what to do with the templates. It makes no sense to discuss now customization for infoboxes if it still not clear how Guild articles are going to be limited by this, or if they are going to be limited at all.--Fighterdoken 22:11, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

Found one :D Guild:Apostles Of The Risen Phoenix-- Wynthyst 22:31, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

Found another :) Guild:Passionate_Kiss_Of_Nosferatu. Please notice an advanced Alliance infobox idea, for exactly the same purposes of why Tomato needed an enhanced Guild infobox for his alliance. Dmitri Fatkin 18:15, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

One more example of appropriate color customization where member profiles are in compliance with our current guild formatting guidelines, being very brief and clear: Guild:The_Order_Of_Dii. What I'm trying to illustrate is that the formatting guidelines should be considered individually in each guild's total article overlook. Dmitri Fatkin 19:31, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Colors for page elements like Dii's table have never been considered an issue, at least as far as I'm concerned. We're mostly concerned about modifications of base page colors and text. (Aiiane - talk - contribs) 19:36, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Then the guidelines should simply state something like that: "If you're making a substitution for the original page background color, the new color of article's font must be easily readable on it".
And perhaps: "Guild articles may not utilize gross or hard-to-read fonts which may distract the visitors from obtaining required information". It keeps all the needed rights to adjust the spoilers. Dmitri Fatkin 19:58, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Except that then every time someone pushes the limits, we'll have yet another discussion about whether it's really readable, with some people thinking it is, others thinking it isn't, et cetera. It's not just about text being readable either - having a dark page background when the wiki's top and side menus are a bright white provides a painful contrast for many users, as well as simply looking out of place. The palette approach is designed to compromise between freedom and ease of regulation. (Aiiane - talk - contribs) 20:04, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Required Content

I thought we resolved this already?. Requiring basically only name + guild template + infobox template + "Contact information" (be it on the infobox or the page itself). I am not really a supporter of forcing editors to enter full or specific partial information in the infobox, if failing to adress this will lead to a {{guild cleanup}} tag and later deletion of the page (instead of, let's say, using {{guild-stub}}).--Fighterdoken 18:34, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

That's basically my desire as well: proper name and tag, {{guild}}, {{guild infobox}}, and some form of viable contact information are what I would consider to be minimum content. (Aiiane - talk - contribs) 20:51, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

I thought in skimming through there was still some unresolved questions, so I didn't think it would hurt to add it here.-- Wynthyst 21:49, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

I also agree with the above statements, one of the primary things that really needs to be on a guild is the contact info since otherwise prospective people wishing to join have no option other than to leave a message on the talk page. Proper in-game name is obviously a requirement, guild and infobox templates again need to be on the article as well as the alliance template if applicable but other than that I don't think there is anything that needs to be required. A guild website link is always nice if the guild has one but isn't really what I'd consider required info. --Kakarot 03:03, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

as an example: why do requirements need to be higher than what's need to avoid A1 speedy deletion, if this is for articles? We don't delete stubs elsewhere? Backsword 11:48, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Well, what would you consider the minimum information to avoid A1? I guess what I have been seeing is a Guild Name, a tag, a territory, a time zone. Yet, they have all the formatting bits from the template.... the infobox, the subheadings, even an alliance nav box. Does a page like this truly benefit the wiki? Does it provide enough useful information to avoid A1? There has been various interpretations of what is 'enough' information, and based on the discussion above, it was opted to add the Required content section to place the bare minimum.-- Wynthyst 12:12, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Just a note, A1 only applies to articles in the main namespace, as stated by GWW:DELETE. (Aiiane - talk - contribs) 15:07, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Again, i would require: {{guild}}, {{guild infobox}} (filling it up is not needed), name as per in-game, guild tag, and contact information. Asking for other information that would be optional could prove to give more problems than benefits (a guild could just not play in a fixed territory while also not playing in international, or not have a timezone stablished for playing). Remember that we don't really need to tag everything with {{guild cleanup}}, but there is also {{guild-stub}} available. In any case, i think asking also for guild leader name + language could be more helpful (documenting-wise) than territory + timezone.--Fighterdoken 18:07, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

An article only has to contain some relevant info, any info, in order to avoid A1. If guild pages were trated as articles, then eg. a note on what guild hall isd used, or who is the leader of the guild would suffice, tho' the page would be a stub, meant for expansion. But that's not the case here, exemplifying how that apardigm is not followed. Backsword 12:59, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

Completly aside, what do you mean with a 'guild time zone', Wyn? Backsword 12:59, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

One of the options in the guild infobox is 'Time Zone'.(edit) I am not debating the way the infobox is structured, that doesn't belong here, and have had nothing to do with that in any case. I'm just pointing out that of the information that IS possibly contained in it, I feel some is more useful than others. -- Wynthyst 16:53, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

Apart from the {{guild}}, {{guild infobox}}, {{alliance nav}} Templates, the Guild Name and Tag aswell as an Ingame Contact of the Leader / an Officer required Content for Guild Pages also should contain some description of the Guild itself. What does an empty Guild Page just containing 3 Empty Headings and the Guild Infobox with just a few filled out Entrys make any sense for? I am not searching the Wiki for Guilds to just be presented an empty page (apart from a Guild "Info"box telling me they are Kurzick, using GuildHall xyz and playing in whatever territory) Even though if they include a Website in the Guild infobox I need to do an additional click and then again search their Page for the Information about the Guild (If there is any Description of the Guild on the Website). Such Guild Pages (as Guild:Silly_Swedes or even better Guild:Killers_Retreat for example) does not serve any purpose. Having some Information about the Guild (NO Faction, Guild Hall is no valueable information) like a little description of the Guild would give interested people a quick overview on what the guild is about and what to expect. --SilentStorm 20:51, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

I personally tend to agree that a basic paragraph about the guild outside of the information in the infobox should be required. If this proposal get's implemented, no guild page is going to be deleted unless it is basically completely empty, and we are going to be archiving bare pages. While I know that {{guild-stub}} is available... tell me who actually is going to go through guild stub pages and fill them in if not the primary editors of the page? I don't see it as being a very helpful tag. We all know that while the community at large can help guild pages by fixing coding problems, etc, the actual content of the page has to come from the guild itself, so making it a requirement seems to make the most sense to me. -- Wynthyst 04:02, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

The problem with requiring a "basic paragraph" about the guild is that there is no clear way to define, word, and/or determine what exactly that paragraph should include, and as such we would end with cleanup tagging wars in the same way as the "no content" one. Most (if not all) the information they could include there, is just a rewrite of what is already said in the guild infobox, and content besides that tends to not be informative at all (like "we rock", "we play always", etc). I could see a requeriment about the guild's "playing style" (as in "casual", "hardcore" (does that exist in GW?), etc), but i fail to see what kind of information such paragraph could include that is not already asked by the infobox.

Also, about guild stubs, let's remember that a common user wouldn't be able to fill such info, so tagging it that way would be just a way of pointing to the one who maintains the article that it could be improved. But even if it does not, the article should still be "archiveable" for historical purposes. The fact that a guild didn't take the time to add a small summary about themselves on their guild article is also "information" about the guild (meaning, they don't care about public relationship, are not recruiting, are too lazy, don't write well enough in english and don't want to try using a translator, etc).

I think requiring the infobox content is just as far as we should go. Forcing users to enter more when they are not willing to could be counterproducent (because i think "we want to know that a guild with such name existed", and i don't see it as "we doing the guild a favor by hosting a webpage").--Fighterdoken 05:44, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Well, now that the template has been changed to display 'example' text, it's even worse if the guild doesn't change it. -- Wynthyst 05:54, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Sigh. You can basicly define everything as information do you? Ofc you can interprete the hell out of nothing but thats not what Guild Pages or Wiki are for dont you think? And the Information they would be required to give may not necessary be a duplicate of The Information given in the Infobox. The Infobox does not tell anything about the Guild itself. Its just Playstyle, Faction and the like... Nothing about the Guild ie. what they do what kind of guild they are or a little description of the Guild would do the job. And while you are interpreting the hell out of nothing lemme do the same: Instead of interpreting lazyness / I dont care as information you could interpret it as "k, ill just create a crappy empty page here putting in some stuff from the Infobox which is presented to me when im creating a new Guild Page just to have created a page here and having some note about my Guild. I dont really care about it beeing any useful nor do I intend to make it an informative Page or maintain it.". And tbh this is much more close to reality then saying "Oh nice we got an empty guild page here without any Information beside half of the infobox (if at all) which havent been edited since ages but hey its valueable Information which in any case should be archived and kept coz there is a 0.00000000001% Chance that someone might be looking for that Page and find those "Information" valueable." </sarcasm> --SilentStorm 12:55, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

no info means that there's NO INFORMATION AT ALL about the guild, save the name and tag. {{guild-stub}} is more appropriate for guild pages which have a small amount of information, because the creator of the page may want to come back and add more things later.--Sum Mesmer Guy contribs 17:21, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

"but hey its valueable Information which in any case should be archived and kept coz there is a 0.00000000001% Chance that someone might be looking for that Page" - 0.00000000001% is more than 0.00000000000%, which is the amount of benefit the page gives by being deleted. We delete mainspace articles that have no appropriate information, but not ones that have a small amount of information related directly to the topic. There's no reason for guild pages to be different from that. A page with nothing on it except "We like Guild Wars" has nothing appropriate to that guild; it's a common statement. An infobox that states the guild is Kurzick and plays in the eastern timezone, on the other hand, is relevant to the guild, even if it's not an essay. (Aiiane - talk - contribs) 20:21, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Well, I've stated my preference, but I'm fine with whatever the consensus is.-- Wynthyst 20:23, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

I think at this point is safer to just go with the requeriments we already have for minimum content, and which we have discused before. What SS is asking is not something we can word in this policy, specially since the content itself would be too variable. If added, each editor would have a different opinion about what is "enough side-content about the guild", giving room for more problems that the benefit of adding such line. This discussion is already proof of that.--Fighterdoken 07:32, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Its just that there IS something apart from a blank page ;) Just to give some examples: They do have Content, This one too, They have a little, No Content (hardly qualifing for stub), Definately No Content. And Please dont tell me they do have I wont read it anyway :P - Anyways anything along the lines of this one would already be enough and would boost the Pages alot. The Example Guild already has it too so it should be safe to assume its wanted that way, Let just make it an actual Requirement. Just that there NEED to be some Lines explaining/describing the Guild and NO Blank Pages apart from Guild Infobox. --SilentStorm 14:21, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

You still haven't explained what benefit you see for the wiki to delete them. I've heard the argument "if I search for them and just find very little information, I'll get irritated instead of looking somewhere else" (something along those lines), but that's not related to wiki at all, but to the guild. It's their choice to present as much information about their guild as they want to. Torg Bloodspine has basically as much content as the last guild you linked, but we keep it. It's not complete but it has information, and some info is always better than none.
As Fighterdoken says, this seems to be a contested point, and it is very hard to define what is enough content. Which leads me to believe deleting guild pages for lack of content is a really bad idea, because of all the "drama" it creates. Just see what it has done already ;)
As a side note, if you don't plan to listen to what we say, there's really no use posting, is there? - anja 16:03, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

The People the small Part above was directed to know it and the Rest should ignore it. I ofc read the replies to this (otherwise why would I bother posting here) I would just have ignored certain ppl's replies along the Lines "They do have Information / Content". Either way where is the point in having Empty Pages about Guilds that dont care about their Page here and just create it once from the example remove all the info (or just keep the Example stuff which is even worse) and then ignore it. Such Pages are Nominal Members and of no use at all since

• Noone ever looks at them
• Noone searches for them
• Noone edits/updates them
• They mule the Database/Server

And as for the last Point: Even though deleting them does not save any Space as I was told (which I originally thought it would) making giving Information about the Guild along the lines in the Example Guild Article would make sure that we dont end up with hundrets or even thousands of useless Nominal Members aka. Empty Never visited/used/updated Guild Pages. On the other hand you could try and explain whats the benefit of having such Guild Pages on the wiki. But please dont come up with the "argument" So that everyone knows they exist as I doubt anyone will care about wether a Guild exist or not except for that Guilds Members who know it anyway. And even though it doesnt really belong in this section, while we are talking about deleting: If we wont delete inactive Guild Pages anymore (No Edits in 6 months) that argument I mentioned above would be useless anyway as noone could/would know wether that particular Guild still exists. Im fine with keeping Notable Guilds which are commonly known by the Community even though they disbanded/become inactive as it is right now but why doing the same for every 0815 Guild that noone ever heard of and which also dont care about their Page here and just having a blank one (beside the 2 Required Templates)? --SilentStorm 17:11, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

(Reset indent) Again, whether you like it or not, the argument for keeping them IS to know that they exist/existed. The current version of this section of the proposal does require more information than this, but less than this. -- Wynthyst 17:22, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Language

I don't see oposition for the "english + any other language" stance, but since we have been ignoring it lately here, it may be worth to keep discussing it a little since is something that is new to the policy. Remember also that this is not intended to be a "english only" rule, and that we would have to be permisive on this for a while, even translating pages ourselves instead of just tagging for cleanup.--Fighterdoken 18:34, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

My views:

• Pages need to have the minimum content requirements in English. They can also have them in another language if they like, but they have to be present in English as well.
• If a page contains other content beyond the bare minimum in a language other than English, it should have at least an English summary of the additional contents, even if they're not translated verbatim.
• All effort should be made to provide a translation before the possibility of deleting a page is considered. If this means someone besides the original author translating the page, so be it.

(Aiiane - talk - contribs) 20:59, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

I agree, and I have never intended that this should be an all or nothing approach, or a 'fix it in a week or delete it' sort of change.-- Wynthyst 21:54, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

As to language I prefer the idea of the primary page should being in English as this is the language the wiki is in and having a subpage copy in the guilds respective language. --Kakarot 03:03, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

As long as the required info is in english, I would not mind other languages. --Xeeron 11:40, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

I fully agree with Aiiane's points. No problems with how much of the page is non-English, as long as the basic info is in English. -- ab.er.rant 10:36, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Changing the time given for guild clean-up

I forgot to add this here before, but since i just kind of snuck it into the changes halfway through the earlier discussion, I thought I should at least point it out. I don't see any harm in doubling the time given for clean up if a guild is tagged.-- Wynthyst 21:54, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

I don't see any problem with increasing the time limit especially since we no longer tag for deletion inactive guild pages but rather tag for inactive guild page for historical reasons. --Kakarot 03:03, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

It may be worth to increase the cleanup time up to two weeks, but i don't think beyond that is needed. Usually, cleanup is used when the page has no formatting at all (nor info to actually fill the missing gaps), and in those, if after two weeks content has not been updated, then it's safe to assume that it won't be in the short term. For particular cases (like "cleanup beacuse it's a forum", or "info everywhere and hard to understand), it may be better to just go and do the cleanup oneself if, before the time is meet, it hasn't been done. Also, remember that for stuff as "waiting more content besides the minimum", we can still use the {{guild-stub}} tag.--Fighterdoken 05:56, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Sure, doubling the time limit is fine. -- ab.er.rant 01:56, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

A longer time limit is a good idea. --Xeeron 11:39, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Inactive guilds and historical content

Since this came up in the above discussion, we may want to discuss also the time required for guilds qualifying as "inactive" and "historical" (since i had first said "3 months and 6 months" just to give a number). Since we no longer would be "deleting" content, 3 months may be a better time limit for inactivity, which has the potential to encourage guilds to update with more frequency (6 months is too much time, and gives too much room for "just forgetting about it).
Also, for tagging as historical, we may want to include in the policy that this mean that only basic content about the guild will be kept (as it was suggested in other thread here). Even more, i would suggest that historical guild articles were "encyclopedic-like wikified" once gaining such status, to meet the expectation of them being used for reference purposes only. And, before i forget about it, we may want to decide also how much time after being tagged as "inactive" will articles be moved to "historical content" (1 month seems fine i would say, 3 months could still work as to keep the current 6-months limit).--Fighterdoken 05:56, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

I think giving them 3 months without an edit is adequate for inactivity, and 3 months inactive for Historical status. I'm only afraid that the Inactive Guild list is going to get way big in 3 months. Since this is a full change in the functionality of Historical status, I also agree that wiki-fying them to 'encycolpedic standard' with the standard guild page formatting, limiting the image saved to only the cape would be appropriate. If the guild were to 'restart' all the info (with the exception of deleted images) would be available for them to revert to.-- Wynthyst 06:07, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Those time limits seem fine to me. Should we create a new page similar in style to the present candidates for deletion (using dpl to make it auto add guilds) one side for guilds needing the inactive template applied to it and the other side for guilds needing to be changed to historical. I have created a basic idea of what I mean on this sandbox and I think I got the dpl done correctly. --Kakarot 12:44, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

I think poke is already on it. (edit) or maybe that was for the notable to historical since that's already in effect.-- Wynthyst 12:47, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Changes made

I have made the changes to the proposal that I believe we have come to agreement on. I believe the only remaining issue is the formatting/customization.-- Wynthyst 13:32, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

I have only two minor concerns with the historical section:

• We can't allow guilds to remove the historical tag just because. At least, a request for such should be done in the guild's talk page, because at that point we would need to be sure that whoever removes the tag is indeed from the "old guild", and not from a new one that were to share the same in-game name.
• May want to change "Additional images will be removed." to "Additional content may be removed.", since i think we would also get rid of excesive formatting (those who end putting profile-like info for contacts), or subpages with non-guild escencial content (ie. Guild-only events, fanfic), etc.--Fighterdoken 18:25, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

I was not the one that made the change to the removal of the Historical tag, and I personally agree that it needs to have some sort of check in place. -- Wynthyst 18:27, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Even if the change made by... Backsword? still made sense (since admins don't get a say on content unless they want to), we can still regulate it by requiring confirmation on the talk page. Should be fine that way, i think.--Fighterdoken 18:38, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Which is why I left it as he changed it. Though we may want to clarify that confirmation that it IS the historical guild be placed on the talk page when the tag is removed.-- Wynthyst 05:01, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

Guild pages color customization: the final decision

Well, what can I say: we've got two very different roads leading out of that primeval forest we're presently in... The first approach leads to implementing the switches for color customization from the standard Guild and Alliance infobox templates, as well as allowing any appropriate (non-disturbing) guild page backgrounds or colors of the font the author prefers. And, the second path is allowing only palette-based page color modifications which will prevent the users from choosing very harsh color combinations, this way, the colors of the Guild & Alliance infobox will not be customized and the only background palettes permitted for use on Guild Pages will be the light ones (different font colors on a white background, or light-colored backgrounds in conjunction with black font).

Which way to move, is totally up to us. I have comprehensively expressed my points on that matter in the past, so, in terms of deciding a stance of your own, all users have got a plenty piece of information to look through: Guild_Wars_Wiki_talk:Guild_pages#Change_proposal_survey; Guild_Wars_Wiki_talk:Formatting/Guilds#Customizable_colors; Template_talk:Guild_infobox#Style_and_Layout. You may also consider checking the talk page of my guild if you want to.

To make it as less predetermined or prejudiced as possible, I believe that we need to run a small survey for the subject. The authors of all guild pages are invited to participate and are also encouraged to take a part in the final stage of this throughout the week discussion.

Below is the poll to support one of proposed resolutions. Please do not write anything besides your signature under one of these fields and use 'reply' to express your opinions. Thank you. --Dmitri Fatkin 04:19, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

Please use the "Preview" button before stamping your signature!

Um, no. We don't do content decisions via votes here. (Aiiane - talk - contribs) 04:55, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

Ok, I agree, we don't vote on things like this. it's determined through discussion and consensus. And I also would like more discussion on other options, like possibly offering 2 or 3 different templates.-- Wynthyst 05:09, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

How will we find out who supports which point of view then? I've changed the original text, it's not voting but is rather a poll now. Dmitri Fatkin 05:23, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

Wiki consensus isn't about deciding upon one view, it's about finding something that everyone can work with through compromise. Votes inherently detract from that. (Aiiane - talk - contribs) 06:49, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

Users supporting the full customization of Guild Pages:	Users supporting palette-based customization of Guild Pages:	Users supporting not voting on policy issues
Dmitri Fatkin 05:33, 21 June 2008 (UTC). Your signature here. Your signature here. Your signature here. Your signature here.	Your signature here. Your signature here. Your signature here. Your signature here. Your signature here.	Your signature here. Your signature here. Your signature here. Your signature here. Your signature here.

-- Ok, and now I'll briefly express of why there are only two ways to settle this matter. The dark color palettes don't fit with light (the default) colors used in both Guild and Alliance infoboxes, and hence the temptation which thrills the users into changing the color scheme of the default templates and introducing their own versions of Guild and Alliance infoboxes. For quite obvious reasons, such as consistency and DynamicPageList access to information, this should not be done. And because of this, the only reasonable way to address this is to either add the ability to customize the background / foreground / border colors of both Guild and Alliance infobox templates or to restrict such actions and limit the design features of guild pages at all. This will make the articles look in a stricter Wiki-based format by eliminating all possible deviations and bringing them to a single standard, taking away the remnants of a user space. The question that needs to be answered from heart is if it's actually the way all of us would like to see guild pages. Commonly, they're designed by one member of particular guild who's trying to represent his/her assembly in its best way for the global audience, which includes the creation of unique team-reflecting spirit by changing the look, placement or coloring of certain elements on the page. The key moment here is that without allowing the color customization of such vitally-important elements as the Guild and Alliance infobox templates, the whole idea of customly-coloring a page reaches a deadlock. And, when some of us have tried to perform some customization in the past, they had to deal with that: "You can't do that because it's against the rules" argument, when in fact, there weren't any references covering such statements. That's what has turned the whole thing into forest fire - we have to decide whether the individual customization of guild pages should be done at user's own discretion or it has to be regulated by certain templates built in order to prevent the use of harsh color combinations. Also, it is very clear to me that without the customizable Guild and Alliance infoboxes, there's no purpose of having an advanced page customization at all. Dmitri Fatkin 05:18, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

I take exception to the idea that you were told that your colors were 'against the rules'. The only issues that were brought up regarding your page was the content with the exception of the customized infoboxes. Quite simply put you didn't follow even the spirit of the guidelines where content was concerned. I don't recall a single comment regarding the colors, or a single person asking you to change them. There are not just two solutions to this issue, as I said, we could offer a choice of multiple templates, with restrictions on customization for each template, we could go with a palette based customization as has been already discussed, we could treat this namespace like the mainspace with no customization at all, or we could allow a free for all with no restrictions on customization. I am sure that there are other equally acceptable options. There is language in both the current policy and guideline that says you need to use the {{guild infobox}} and {{guild}}, and if a guild is in an alliance the {{alliance nav}} templates. This policy proposal was not in response to the situation with your particular guild page, however if you look at the earliest parts of this discussion, it was presented as a guild page that was totally out of control.-- Wynthyst 06:48, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

(Edit conflict) I will answer the question to the paragraph above the last one first: We don't really need to know who or how many supporters a certain option has when discussing wiki matters. It's enough with knowing the fact that the option is available and was deemed important enough to be mentioned as such. After that, we need to find a way to try to reach a balance between that and the other options if possible (many times we end proposing alternatives which we don't really support, but which may help to solve a certain issue).

Also, and as an answer to the big paragraph (which is big, by the way, even for a "why i don't like option B" statement), i want to remind you that there is actually another option: "Don't allow color customization at all", and this option, together with the "Customization is good" option is what originated the "restricted to color palette" alternative, which is already a compromise between both.

You have to understand that for these things (as in real-life negotiations) you have few options: keep pushing for what you want hoping for some day convince your counterpart; reach a compromise between what you want and what your counterpart wants (if you can't get an apple, a pear is not a bad option); or keep pushing until you force your counterpart to quit discussing the matter at all, and thus leaving things "as they are" (which may be a good or bad thing, depending on how you see it).--Fighterdoken 06:50, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

It's good that we keep the things going, a certain direction is what's up for everyone to decide. However, I'd like to see more guild article authors taking a part in this. The poll I've presented isn't about trying to "push" a certain decision, it's just to know who supports what and such. Dmitri Fatkin 07:09, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

I as well would like to see more guild article editors involved, and we have given them all opportunities, including your addition to the guild notice box, the RfC, and the Policy page. The fact that they aren't here indicates to me that a great majority of them are only looking for a place to have a page, while not really interested in how the wiki is run and regulated. We can't force anyone into these discussions.-- Wynthyst 07:18, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

Alternatives to formatting limitations

Since we are stuck at this point, i thought making visible some of the alternatives we have could be helpful for resolving the formatting issue. Content restrictions are not dealt with here, since it doesn't appear to be a matter of discussion for now (but if it were, please note that we would require to rewrite a full policy for that :P).

• Remove all restrictions to the Guild: namespace, efectively allowing it to be used as webpage hosting service for guilds.
• Apply minimum formatting restrictions to the Guild: namespace. Restrictions ensure that the vital information (as requested on the "minimum content required" section) about the guild stays, while also allowing full customization of pages (color, position, size, flavor). May want to note that the current policy in effect follows this trend, kinda...
• Apply wiki-friendly restrictions to the Guild: namespace. Restrictions should be those strictly meant to allow easy access to the content, such as image-weight restrictions, page-weight restrictions, coding that doesn't block the access to other parts of the wiki, etc.
• Apply common-user friendly restrictions to the Guild: namespace. Restrictions should be those intended to facilite the access to content by common users: coding that doesn't change the rest of the site along with the guild page, color scheme that doesn't conflict with the wiki design, image and text that doesn't affect the visibility of content (long phrases and big images are long and big respectively), unique font/fontsize (or limited set of fonts/sizes) to ensure readability.

Color scheme could be:

• Limited (2-2048 colors palette)
• Kinda permisive (explicitly disallowing the use of XYZ "high-contrast with the wiki" colors)
• Kinda vague (disallowing the use of high-contrast colors without definition of them)
• Totally vague (defining it as "anything visually uncomfortable" is discouraged and will be changed to a neutral option if available; ugly is fine).

• Apply wiki-content restrictions. Limit guild articles to basic, impersonal, neutral information. One page only, 3 images maximum (cape, group image, guild banner) with size limits. No further customization. (a man can dream...)
• Apply U, V, W restrictions to the Guild: namespace. Apply X, Y, Z restrictions to the main page in the Guild: namespace only.

Please note that these alternatives are not mutually exclusive at all (even if some of them conflict with the current draft). And also, we don't need to apply all of them to all the guild page. I think we could reach a compromise where the main page is to be neat, wiki-presentable and "archiveable", while sub-pages can still be openly personalized to fit the guild's tastes, even if that means having a black background with lime-green Comic Sans size 16 blinking letters on a sub-page.--Fighterdoken 02:44, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

I have had to take a step back for a few days and consider how I wanted to respond to this Fighterdoken. I believe we have come too far in this process to just scrap what we've accomplished and rewrite the whole thing on the basis of the formatting issue. I understand where you are coming from but I'm not sure exactly how to proceed. I guess I keep coming back to the idea of offering a small selection of formatting templates with a limited color palette for each for the main guild page, though I'm not exactly sure how to accomplish this. This would allow each guild some customization options while hopefully ensuring that the minimum required content is easily available and a certain standard is maintained. I would like to think that guilds would follow through with whatever template they chose for subpages to maintain some consistency in design but am not sure we need to regulate that specifically. I am against customization of the required templates in any manner, just to maintain some wiki wide consistency on how infoboxes and nav boxes are treated in general. I'm not sure how well this addresses any of the issues you've presented, other than to state my personal preferences. -- Wynthyst 14:41, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Actually, my intention was more to show these alternatives to those who still have issues with the proposal. In any case, i think we have been forgetting one thing up to now: Page size. Maybe we should put a limit to this at, let's say... 500kb (images included) with text only at 32kb? (because yes, i have seen guild pages that go well beyond that, and i don't think that is healthy anymore).--Fighterdoken 21:57, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

I don't think we should set a fixed limit - it's both hard for normal users to check and liable to be abused. I'd prefer to just give sysops explicit permission to request guild pages be trimmed down at their discretion. (Aiiane - talk - contribs) 21:59, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

I don't think that is a viable alternative. For starters, we have the "admins don't get a special say on content" matter that is mentioned every time something like that is proposed. Also, we had a simmilar stance regarding formatting and infobox/template use on guild pages, and most admins just "Meh..." it since it doesn't really bothers them, which in the long run means that the issue is not addressed.

Also, a weight restriction would only be applied to the front page (same as with User:), and since most of the problems would arise from images, this would give room to allowing anyone to resize them without having to make a request that would be ignored most of the time (not that it had happened before, nope, not at all).--Fighterdoken 22:22, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Content != page size. How to change the content would be up to the users modifying the page. We had an even BIGGER issue with page size limits especially w.r.t. user pages, and it's one I'd really rather not repeat. (Aiiane - talk - contribs) 22:44, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

I guess I am against a page size restriction. On User pages, there is a reason, it is the portal to the talk page through signatures, etc. but not as many people leave messages on guild pages, rather they leave messages on the editor's talk page. I would rather limit the number of images, maintaining the already set size limit for images at 500k max as per GWW:IMAGE. The fact that some admins just "Meh..." is not a problem with the policy (other than the current policy is difficult to enforce as it stands, hence this proposal) as much as a problem with admin perception of the value of this namespace.-- Wynthyst 22:47, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

While I see what you mean Fighterdoken in regard to size limit I think the way the present proposal puts limits on what content is allowed on the main guild article as well as the limit on number of images it should negate the need for a page size limit although if a page does get too big any user can leave a message on the creators talk page/guilds talk page and if nothing is done by say a week or two, a cleanup tag could be placed on the guild page. --Kakarot 22:53, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

By the way... where in IMAGE does it states a imageweight limit?. In any case, i think this is something that we will just have to wait and see... specially with those 1024x768+ hi-res guild hall and 1024x768+ hi-res group images.--Fighterdoken 22:57, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Ok, so not GWW:IMAGE, but I know I've seen it somewhere restricting the size of images to a max of 500k. -- Wynthyst 00:18, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

What about "side" content?

I just read this proposal, and must say I like it a lot. Especially the change to not delete inactive Guild pages, but rather archive them (just remember to update the "inactive guild" tags at the same time). Anyway, I was thinking if not also something about "side" content should be mentioned. With that I mean things like Guild userboxes and categories as well as policy for sub-pages. --Lensor (talk) 13:27, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

For guild userboxes maybe add something like "Userboxes created for sole use by guild members should be kept as a subpage of the guild; for example Guild:Example Guild/Userbox; rather than in the template namespace. This is because they aren't for general use." or is there a better way to word it Lensor? As to categories maybe they should be something like Category:Users in Example Guild using the full guild name rather than the tag since multiple guilds can use the same tag. Not sure about how to deal with subpages though. --Kakarot 13:36, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

I guess I am not clear what you are proposing Lensor, are you talking about what to do with those items when a guild page is moved to Historical status? Or are you proposing to add a new section to the policy to cover them in general? I can see where adding a category for guild userboxes with all the individual 'members of guild X' categories as sub categories of a main 'Guild userbox' category would keep the category tree a bit cleaner but should possibly considered a separate project. As for subpages, I think the general feeling that I've gotten from the discussion here is that people are leaning away from regulating guild subpages, and I guess I tend to agree.

I am just not sure how far we want to micro manage some of this stuff through this or any other policy, but maybe some of it needs to be laid out as part of a broader guideline. I think in general the Categories on GWW are a sprawling mess, and could use some additional structure, but that is an entirely different discussion :D If you are talking about what happens to those items when a guild page is moved to Historical status, I feel that removal of excess information and creating a more 'encyclopedic' entry is far more appropriate than trying to move all the extras. -- Wynthyst 14:25, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

I am sorry if I was unclear, I meant exactly as Kakarot outlined it. Basically some little bit in the policy that 1) say it is ok to have Guild userboxes and categories, and 2) outline where they should be placed and how they should be named, so it is all kept in one place. I don't think a new category structure is needed, as there is already a guild members category structure in place, and it works fine imo. I am fine with leaving subpages unregulated, as long as it is a conscious choice to do so. That the "fluff" is removed for historical guilds is perfectly fine. --Lensor (talk) 18:15, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

If that is the issue, i think Kakarot's proposal seems fine; maybe just a small reword along the lines of : "Content created for the sole use of guild or alliance members (such as templates or userboxes) should be kept as a subpage of the guild. For example placed at Guild:Example Guild/Userbox instead of Template:Userbox.". This way we include also "alliance templates" or anything that could be transcluded? into other places.

Also, note that this would also qualify as "fluff" for archival purposes :).--Fighterdoken 21:50, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Yeah that reword works for me, completely forgot that there were more than just userboxes :) --Kakarot 22:47, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Ok, so an additional section for Additional content? -- Wynthyst 22:49, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

"Allowed content" seems a good place for this.--Fighterdoken 22:51, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Actually, I added a line to Naming and Format since that is the area that talks about how to structure page names, but if you think Allowed content would be better, feel free to move it.-- Wynthyst 22:57, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

What about a slight change to "All content created for the sole use of guild or alliance members (such as templates or userboxes) should be kept as a subpage of the guild. For example a guild related userbox should be placed at [[Guild:Example Guild/Userbox]] rather than at [[Template:Example Guild Userbox]]"? --Kakarot 23:00, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

New section added

After reviewing a few things, I added a section concerning Guild talk pages. Basically just copying it over from [[GWW:USER}} and adjusting it for the Guild namespace. Comments? -- Wynthyst 00:45, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

I am not sure if it should be included since it's common wiki usage, but being redundant doesn't really hurt, specially since we don't have a talk pages policy yet.--Fighterdoken 07:12, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Well, as has been pointed out repeatedly, because of the in game link, guild pages seem to be a 'starting point' for many wiki editors. These types of editors don't know what 'common wiki usage' is. I think since it is spelled out for userpages, it should also be spelled out for guild pages.-- Wynthyst 12:07, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

I think it's a little silly to have a section which is introduced by a tautology (i.e. Guild talk pages are talk pages) and which includes a qualifier (i.e. Guild talk pages are generally talk pages). That said, I don't think it's a bad idea per se to build a bit of redundancy into the system (if for no better reason than that a person whose only interest in editing the Wiki is creating a Guild page is unlikely to look at many policies beyond GWW:GUILD), but I'd prefer to just have a sentence saying "Guild talk pages must adhere to the relevant user talk page restrictions" or something along those lines. It seems... cleaner (not to mention that it helps introduce new people to other relevant policies). *Defiant Elements* +talk 04:52, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Well, we basically enforce the talk page rules across the board, but the only place I have really seen them written down is in GWW:USER, but I've probably missed it in a more broad area. This being said, from my experience in the past few months working with new wiki editors in the Guild namespace, many have the perception that these pages 'belong' to the guild, and that the talk pages are for forum type communications. It's hard to explain to them that deleting comments etc, is not allowed without having something to point to that says.. this is not allowed. If I point to the User page policy, they say.. but this is our guild page, not a user page. If there is a lot of opposition to this addition, I will bow to consensus as always. -- Wynthyst 05:07, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Fair 'nuff. I'd still remove the tautological introduction though, or the qualifier, if nothing else. *Defiant Elements* +talk 05:13, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

That's fine, like I said, I just copied it over from the Userpage policy and swapped Guild for user. Feel free to reword it.-- Wynthyst 05:20, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Newer section

I've largely avoided this discussion because when push comes to shove, I really don't care very much about the Guild namespace. However, Wyn asked me to take a look this discussion to see if I couldn't jump start it. I just finished reading through the discussion, and I can't shake the nagging feeling that despite the many, many walls of text, not a whole lot is actually being discussed. Or maybe it's more fair to say that the same things are being discussed over and over again in largely the same terms with largely the same outcomes. There really doesn't appear to be very much substantive opposition to the foundation of the policy itself (with a few notable exceptions) and yet the discussion has become very much bogged down.

Before I get into other stuff, I figured I'd add my own 2 cents. I hate to bring this up because I know from personal experience as a policy writer that it can be extremely annoying to deal with semantic nitpicking, but it might be good to go through this policy with an eye toward qualifiers ("should", "generally", etc.) less because I believe that people will attempt to engage in wikilawyering on the basis of a single word and more because I think they can weaken the explicit intent of the policy. I'd also like to see the "Allowed" and "Disallowed" sections to read "Explicitly allowed" and "Explicitly disallowed" for clarity's sakes. I'm also not clear on how the first sentence of the maintenance section relates to the creation of pages for notable guilds for documentation purposes by users who are not/were not members of that particular guild.

Now, back to the discussion itself. Based on the discussion which has taken place on this page (note that I have not read other discussions which may be pertinent) it appears that a general consensus has been reached that we should, if nothing else, impose some limitation on (i.e. not turn a blind eye toward) guild pages. The only substantial opposition has lain in the precise degree of limitation, specifically as it relates to formatting. However, most of the problems seem to have been resolved in a satisfactory fashion with the exception of the question of customization. The options are either a) no customization, b) limited customization, or c) full customization. The strong majority appears to be in favor of some form of limitation (although the opposition is... vocal).

This proposal represents a strongly supported change to the current policy whose impact is meant to reach beyond the issue of formatting. In fact, dare I say it, if not for that one issue, there would be a pretty strong case for saying that it was supported by a near complete consensus (though there seem to be some minor kinks that would need to be worked out before it was implemented). I'd hate to see a policy get bogged down by a relatively minor (in terms of the scope of the policy change) issue when a consensus can be reached. While advocacy for both of the polarities exist, I would advocate a shift in discussion, moving away from those polarities and trying to find some middle ground with the more malleable second option.

P.S. Sorry for adding yet another wall of text. *Defiant Elements* +talk 05:31, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Hey, at least you used paragraphs :). About the minor rewords for the sake of clarity, i don't see a problem with doing them. I seriously doubt someone will come here to check what we meant when we added a line, so if we can clear up in the policy what we meant, then it should be done.

On the second issue, yeah, i agree that we are stuck in the "formatting" issue (and recently, on the addition or not of another bullet to the required content). I would be fine if we could just pass the changes about those issues in the way they are currently worded in the proposal, but if it becomes too much of a problem once we decide to do the last step as a proposal, then i think we could just leave them aside. Not the best option, but meh.--Fighterdoken 05:53, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

I am also fine with the change in wording DE proposed in his first section.

As to his second points, I would agree that the formatting has totally stalled out this discussion, but I'm not sure what to do to resolve it. Any suggestions are most welcome. The required content issue is less sticky, and I believe can be resolved relatively easily. -- Wynthyst 07:45, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

I am also fine with the wording changes that DE mentioned above.

In regards to his second point the formatting/customization has been one of the main points that has overshadowed the entire discussion as well as one of the main reasons the implementation hasn't moved forward. At the moment based on what I've seen it seems that some of the people pushing for full customization seem to be unwilling to move even an inch away from it whereas most of the people who originally wanted no customization have taken the route of compromise and agreed for the most part that limited customization is somewhat acceptable.

Anyway having said that one way to get away from that side of the discussion and move closer to implementation of this proposal would be to move that entire issue over to either a new formatting proposal or to the talk page of the formatting guideline as was suggested by Fighterdoken a while back; if I remember correctly; as it would me a more fitting location and leave it out of this policy proposal completely. --Kakarot 13:50, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

The problem with that (and I hate to bring up problems here - after all, we're trying to move forward - but it's necessary in this case) is that we run into the same problem as the existing formatting guideline; it's just that, a guideline, and thus explicitly (per GWW:GUIDE) not enforceable.

At this point, I'd honestly say that I'd like to just go ahead with implementing all portions of the policy with formatting being the limited customization that was proposed as a compromise, since as you note Kakarot it seems that there will be no way, short of simply caving in to demands, of further satisfying those who desire full customization. (Aiiane - talk - contribs) 15:14, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

I am ready to discuss whatever will move this forward, Aiiane if you could provide example wording of how you would display the formatting change you are talking about so we all know exactly which of the many suggestions you mean. -- Wynthyst 16:35, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Proposal for implementation

Rather than see all the hard work we've put into this proposal so far come to nothing, I would like to propose the changes that we HAVE been able to agree upon be implemented, without the formatting language as that seems to be where this all gets hung up. We can maybe take a look at the formatting guideline and make some changes there that will satisfy some of the issues that have been addressed here. Of course the policy can be revisited at a later date as well. I feel we have made some serious improvements to the existing policy with these changes, improvements that are sorely needed if the Guild namespace is going to have a continuing positive impact on the wiki.

With implementation in mind, I think we should talk about a way to convey the changes to the guild page editing community. Is it possible to put a notice on all pages in the Guild namespace? Possibly just a temporary addition to the {{guild}} template. We should put a call out for translators on the Community Portal to help get English summaries created for the foreign language pages. I would be happy to go through the guild namespace and add {{Guild translation needed}} or category to those pages that need it to make it easy for translators to identify them. I would propose a timeline of 4-6 weeks for changes to be made to pages that need them. I don't want to rush people, but at the same time I don't think this should be dragged on forever. -- Wyn 09:21, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

I have two small nitpicks with this proposal. One is that it does not state how old inactive pages are treated and disambiguated. Do we need a method to ensure that inactive pages don't get overwritten? Would a new user know how to move a page? Would we notice if one was overwritten? Do we move them once they are inactive? If so, how would a member of the old guild find it? Easily? Disambiguation identifier priority between notable and new guilds? Two: Since we're keeping old/inactive guild pages, do we now also keep disbanded guild pages? Do we honor the deletion request? It makes sense to just keep all proper guild pages regardless of it's state now, doesn't it?

Regardless, it's not enough for me to oppose this proposal as it is, since these can be answered as we put this policy into action. I'm more concerned with how much trivial work it may create rather than how guild pages are treated. -- ab.er.rant 11:20, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you mean Ab.er.Rant. Under Historical Content it clearly indicates "The historical article is to be moved to a historical page Guild:Guild Name (Historical) for reference purposes " This covers all inactive and disbanded guild pages. So they will have a new name, thus removing the chance of them being overwritten. Rather than deleting them at the end of the Inactive period as we do now, we move them. I believe the second condition covers what to do with disbanded guilds. It would be up to the sysop to know the policy, and not delete, but to move to historical. And this is a prime reason for my RfA, as in I'm willing to take on the 'extra, trivial work' this might generate.-- Wyn 12:25, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Please don't mix the RfA with the draft.

To Ab, as Wyn said we would move all historical content to a "disambiguation tagged" page, so conflicts in the creation of guild articles should not exist. The moving process would generally be done for people with knowledge on this policy (hopefully as soon as the guild is tagged as "historical"), so new-user001 wouldn't really have to worry about it.

In this same topic, i would like also for we to implement something along the lines of the {{otheruses}} template that could read "For previous guilds that utilized this name, see ((pagename (historical)))". This template would be put only on guild articles that have a "historical" counterpart also. This could even allow us to keep the old named page "alive" until a new guild with the same name is created.

All in all, i agree with the implementation of the changes we have agreed upon. I thought language was already done too, but if you want to hold on it for a bit i see no problem.--Fighterdoken 19:58, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Y'know, I was thinking about proposing the same a few days ago, but just didn't have the energy to push for it. As for Aberrants nitpicks, I think the best thing would be to write up the proposal, as any such issues may be cleared by that. And if not, it'd be easier to see what needs rewording or changing. Backsword 03:09, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

Well, as I said above, if everyone agrees to implementing the proposal as it stands, without additional formatting requirements, we just need to decide on the best way to implement, and communicate the need for changes on existing guild pages. I've made my suggestions for this.

1. Determine the timeline for changes to be made. At the end of this time frame, non compliant guild pages would be tagged for cleanup.
2. Add a temporary notice to the existing {{guild}} template.
3. Tag the foreign language pages for translation summaries, and request translators via the Community Portal.

If there is something I've missed, feel free to add it. -- Wyn 03:22, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

Hmm... I must've been partially blinded when I went through the proposal previously o.O anyway, as for the extra work, yes, I know you would but it should be a lot more than you. A simple intuitive process that regular editors can help with will make the work simpler and not depend on any small subset of users.

As for timeline, the inactive guild page time limit of 3 months for compliance should be reasonable, given that most guild pages aren't visited often by their creators. The next question is what should happen after that period. Do we find them in violation of this policy and delete them, or do we treat them as any other article and just fix them? -- ab.er.rant 15:08, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

Not sure what you mean by 'fix' them. If they reach the end of the 3 months of inactivity, they are marked historical, and moved as per policy. I guess the timeline I'm more concerned about at this point is that of implementing the changes. As well as the mechanics involved (notices etc.). There are a fair number that are going to need translation to comply with the new English requirement and some that will need additional content to comply with the required minimums (though most of those have already been purged). -- Wyn 15:28, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

Aside from the formatting debate, I think the spirit of this policy change has been agreed upon. Let's go ahead and implement it with the knowledge here that we'll probably have to work out a few kinks of exact implementation (moving inactive pages, etc) as we go; that shouldn't really be an issue as long as the overall spirit in which these changes were intended is clear (and I believe it is). (Aiiane - talk - contribs) 16:26, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

Ok, well, since we all seem to be in agreement, I am going to put it into play with 6 weeks for changes to be made to existing pages, and start tagging for English translations.-- Wyn 17:27, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

My "fix them" was made with regards to those pages that have failed to comply with the new restrictions after the deadline of the deadline, not relating to inactivity. I was asking whether we will be deleting pages that do not comply with the non-English restriction and too much/little content. -- ab.er.rant 12:44, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

The non English pages will be translated by volunteers in the community if they are not done by the guild page editors. As for those that have too little information, they will be then tagged for cleanup and treated like any other page that doesn't comply since the community at large can not just randomly add information, those with too much information will be fixed. At least that is my intention. -- Wyn 12:49, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

I'm up for the addition of the new draft, so far, we've discussed & came to an agreement on three quarters of what we initially planned to improve and therefore, I see nothing wrong with implementation of all of the above-discussed changes. Dmitri Fatkin 18:17, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

I'm glad to hear it Dmitri, since it was implemented on August 8th. -- Wyn 04:07, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

Cool, just did a Russian to English translation for one of the guilds :-) Dmitri Fatkin 01:49, 22 August 2008 (UTC)