Forum:Wikia Teams

So the idea has been going around for a while that we should have certain teams to divide up projects for the wiki. What a team would be is a group of 5-10 editors who are given a certain task. These people share a forum with their team name, and whenever a task is added to the forum, these people can see the problem, discuss it, and put it into action. For example, say there is a "Chapter Summaries" Team. A new chapter comes out, and the people from that team immediately go out and start adding character history summaries, arc summaries, and chapter summaries. Any problems that the editors face while writing these are asked on the forum and thought over by the other members of the group.

Just to clarify, being in a team does NOT mean that an editor can only do one type of edits. It just improves coordination and communication, and helps to increase consistency. Some team ideas that I have heard are the aforementioned Chapter Summaries Team, an Episode Summaries Team, Images Team, Template Team, Character Stub Team, etc.

This is an idea in progress, so any recommendations or criticism are welcome. 21:02, November 4, 2012 (UTC)

Discussion
I fully support this. It would help with productivity and give a "fun' sense to editing (not that it's boring now). 22:11, November 4, 2012 (UTC)

I support, as well. I didn&#39;t come here to paint eachother&#39;s nails like girls at a slumber party - I came here to kick your ass. If you have something to say, you can say it while I&#39;m cutting you to pieces! (talk) 22:18, November 4, 2012 (UTC)

I support this as well. The images team could be split into Manga/Anime divisions as well, with one unbiased team leader to help with manga vs. anime wars. 22:22, November 4, 2012 (UTC)

Damn it PX, you beat me to it. I was going to start this forum as well~! Oh well, onto the ground work then.

Proposed Groups
I think we should start with only a couple of groups, and see if this idea can be used effectively by the community here. Depending on how well it goes, we could introduce more specialised factions. And just so we're clear, being a part of one group does not restrict you from editing the content of another's. It also doesn't mean anybody outside of your group cannot contribute.

Image Project
As JSD mentions above, the image project should be split into two divisions. One focused on anime, and one on manga. Each division should have their own leads, while the Image Project should have an overseer of these divisions. We're all aware of the anime vs. manga conflicts this site has to endure, so the overseer should be seen as a managerial position, someone who coordinates the anime and manga leads to avoid conflict rather then actively contribute content. I also suggesting merging my gif forum with this group.

Responsibilities
 * To ensure all images are to a high standard of quality.
 * To ensure all images are described, sourced, licensed and categorised appropriately.
 * To identify articles in need of new, or updated images and list them.

Summaries Project
Also in dire need of help is a lot of the manga and anime articles, where they are either lacking quality summaries or (particularly the middle area of the series) lacking summaries entirely.

Responsibilities
 * To write accurate short and long summaries of new chapters and episodes.
 * To ensure all links within the summaries are properly done.
 * To identify chapters or episodes in need of summaries and list them.

Grammar Project
This one is self explanatory, the community writes up an article, accidentally puts a little Engrish in there and it's this project's job to come in and fix it. *Please note that (as far as I am aware) we are not locked into American or British English, so things like colour and color are currently not considered mistakes.*

Responsibilities
 * To ensure articles are written to a quality standard of American English.
 * To identify articles in dire need of a grammar check and list them.

As for things like who will actually lead or participate in such groups, I feel that people should be given the chance to nominate themselves. If there's only one nomination then you get the lead, if there is a contest however then administrators and roll backers should vote for who gets the lead, and anybody else can then work as assistants.

And if people really want to we can come up with cool names for the projects and positions, you know give it a novelty feel. 00:15, November 7, 2012 (UTC)


 * I don't really understand why we would have separate manga and anime image teams. I understand the different methods of acquiring each one, but most edit wars are caused by users who disagree between the two. Shouldn't it be one solid group instead of two squabbling ones? 02:33, November 7, 2012 (UTC)


 * Sorry, I didn't mean to suggest they'd be completely separate teams. I'm just aware that there are users who are very skilled in acquiring HQ manga images, and others who are more suited for acquiring anime. They'd be the kind to lead a group like this, but because of the fights we go through I feel it'd be better to have a project lead that would act kind of like a judge to settle any disputes between the two sides. So instead of having a lead whose biased to anime, or biased to manga we can have someone who is open to both and will pick the best option if disputes arise. 02:47, November 7, 2012 (UTC)

Uh, Kuro... You might wanna see this: Forum:Manual of Style. 03:21, November 7, 2012 (UTC)

...that went to poll? Oh, good. American English... and of course everyone who actually voted were Americans. Lovely. Well I guess the Grammar Corner shall be dealing with that then. 06:12, November 7, 2012 (UTC)

l think Kuro's teams are good. Any opposes..? 23:29, November 10, 2012 (UTC)

I think we should also have a Policy and Standard team on here. I won't go in too much details about it, but it enforce the rules of the wiki and so on, but they are not admins. Basically, the team can deal with minor incidents, such as edit wars, and so on. I'm horrible at explaining stuff >_> 23:35, November 10, 2012 (UTC)

Oh yeah, one team l want to add is the Referencia Project, the responsibilties are simply referencing the hundreds of unreferenced pages. 23:40, November 10, 2012 (UTC)

Those are both good ideas, and I was wanting to implement them as well. But like I said at the start of my first post, it'd be best that we only start with a couple of groups and see if the community can actually work with them before making this a full-scale project. Right now it's a very free-for-all mindset we have here, so I'm worried if we try and introduce organised groups there may be some resistance (outside of this forum). 00:36, November 11, 2012 (UTC)

We also need a group that can code templates. Some of the templates are outdated or not functioning as they should be. Maybe not that they do the actual templates, but rather keep them as effective as possible, like templates for templates, instead of hundreds of similar templates each filled with wiki code.

Also, this is totally unrelated, but I saw on the MediaWiki:Uploadtext that animations aren't allowed in devil fruit articles? Is this outdated now?

Anyway, I like this whole idea. It will increase the consistency of the wiki and probably resolve lots of edit wars. I guess I'd be one of the image guys if I ever were to be in a group then.

If it cuts down on the number of people involved in arguments, then sure. 20:48, November 11, 2012 (UTC)

Alright, it seems like most people are down with this idea. So how are we gonna proceed and organize the teams? We also still need to decide on team leaders.

If nobody objects, I would be happy to be that one person who overseers images and helps with manga/anime conflicts. I'm not really one to edit war with people, and when I see anime/manga conflicts, I usually step in to help resolve them. I created (or helped create) a couple templates for images (Rename, BadProfile), and I've also gone through every image in Category:Portraits in order to help resolve the problems mentioned in Forum:Double Portraits. So I'm experienced with the organizational side of images here. My internet is not really good enough for me to download HQ anime images, but I can still get manga images just fine. I guess my main point is that I would be willing and able to do the organizational shit to keep the image team busy. I don't know how the team leaders will actually be decided yet, but I just wanted to get that out there now, I guess.

Also, if this stuff proves to work, and we start to expand the projects, there are some efforts that could be done with two teams. For example, the image team and the references team could work together for all those hundreds of Category:Images with No Source Provided, since that task could be done by either one of the two teams. 00:49, November 12, 2012 (UTC)

I also would be able to be the team leader of images. I upload images of both kinds and can definitely help to settle the edit wars between them. 01:04, November 12, 2012 (UTC)

I support JSD to be the image lead. Gal, I know you're very capable of acquiring high quality images, but in conflicts for anime vs. manga you more often lean towards anime. That's why if JSD becomes the head lead, I wouldn't mind you being the lead of anime images and leaving it to JSD to sort out any issues due to his reasonable and unbiased nature.

As for organising the pages, I believe we should create pages for these (not forums where they can be either lost or forgotten in light of newer topics), and have a section on the navigation bar which leads directly to the projects for anybody to access. Each page should have a short introduction, followed by a list of active members/volunteers and the rules and goals of the group written in detail. Then if people feel it's necessary, we could also list all articles in need of improvement of that particular group (like Usopp needing more/higher quality images or Robin's page need a grammar check).

I'm drawing a lot of inspiration from how the Bleach Wiki has this setup organised, as can be seen here or here. Fairy Tail Wiki also has a similar way of doing things, so I'm confident this can work. 01:28, November 12, 2012 (UTC)

I guess I can sign up for the grammar team. It's what I've been doing most here anyways, on my old and new account. Hope you take this into consideration. Listen up...I&#39;m a guy who thinks he can do whatever the fuck he wants, soooo...I guess I gotta get some. (talk) 01:29, November 12, 2012 (UTC)

Actually Kuro, I'm pretty equally sided lately. I only will revert back to anime if it's definitely better. 01:44, November 12, 2012 (UTC)

Should we like create polls to get things started?

I could make it easier and just dole out leadership positions. And no, I wouldn't just make them random, those of you about to ask. 01:55, November 12, 2012 (UTC)

Considering there's only one option provided and everyone appears to be in agreement, a poll isn't necessary right now. If you're referring to who leads the image project, only administrators and roll backers should be voting for the competing nominees. 01:56, November 12, 2012 (UTC)

Makes more sense for DP to decide these. These people don't have power over others, so I support it. 01:58, November 12, 2012 (UTC)
 * Yeah, this is fine with me. Admin appointments make sense here. Just consult with the other admins, since they are also active editors who would be affected by this. 02:00, November 12, 2012 (UTC)


 * I agree that DP, Deva and Yata and the future admin should be the ones to decide who are the leaders. At least, we won't argue over who would be the leader of this and that. 02:02, November 12, 2012 (UTC)

And Gal, I just see the position of complete image lead as more of an administrative thing. I see a large portion of my time being spent just going through image categories and marking shit for others. Keep in mind at top "edit-whore" speed it still takes me at least 40 mins to properly categorize, source (or mostly add the "No Source" template) and categorize 200 images. I just think with your abilities in gathering images, which are among the best on the wiki, your time is better spent on actually getting images as the "Anime team" leader. You have all the know how for where to get Raws too. Let me take the clerical stuff off your hands and we'll get shit done faster. 02:04, November 12, 2012 (UTC)

Well... sure, I guess. 02:09, November 12, 2012 (UTC)

Now that we seem to have ironed out the basics, I propose that we create a clear list of teams. That way, we can start creating each team's forum, start registering people (joining groups, whatever you want to call it), and get working. 03:43, November 12, 2012 (UTC)

Figure out what you want groups for, then I can tell you who'll run what. 04:04, November 12, 2012 (UTC)

Keep the discussion up here, and list any teams down below. If I missed any, go ahead and add them. 04:18, November 12, 2012 (UTC)

Ok, so the team leaders are set. I'll admit I took a little bit of creative advantage with the group names and titles, but who said this couldn't be fun, right? I still need someone to be the head of the manga image sub-team, so anyone who's serious about volunteering can leave a message here. Also, anyone who doesn't want the job need only to let me know, so we can figure out who else should get it. 04:59, November 12, 2012 (UTC)

I made a group page as a subpage of my profile here. I know I said it should be a forum, but someone said that it might get buried by more recent forum topics, making this the easiest method. 05:21, November 12, 2012 (UTC)

Aw, I wanted to be a leader of the grammar team or the chapter team.... Oh well. I'm fine with PX and Kuro being the leaders anyway! :) 06:14, November 12, 2012 (UTC)

Nice. I'm sure this will definitely make the wiki better. Just one thing: having team pages as user subpages really isn't appropriate. A forum is not good either. The best solution is to put them in the "One Piece Encyclopedia" namespace, which is supposed to contain projects and meta stuff.

Alright, moved. 14:29, November 12, 2012 (UTC)

Can I be the head of the manga image sub-team? I can easily find raws and I try to clean as many raw pictures I can find. 20:26, November 12, 2012 (UTC)
 * I entirely support Calu for this position. So I think we can say all the team leader positions have been filled. 01:43, November 13, 2012 (UTC)

Done. 02:09, November 13, 2012 (UTC)

Seeing as Jade's expressed interest in leading the Grammar Team, I feel she should lead. I appreciate being put as the head, but I'm confident she'll do a much better job then I could. 05:51, November 13, 2012 (UTC)


 * Due to an unforeseen (totally saw it coming) problem, I cannot accept the leadership of the grammar group right now. However, the monster calmed down and decided to give me a gentler punishment (ah, gotta love the pass punishment card!) so I should return before December, unless the monster change her mind and kill me. If no one had been selected as the leader by December, then I suppose I will take it, if I had not been killed by that time. Sorry for the inconvenient. 17:13, November 14, 2012 (UTC)

So any thoughts on the suggestion for having a reference team or a Policy and Standard team? I'll expand on the policy and standard team idea when I have time, since I gave a pretty much a godawful explanation on that. 22:02, November 16, 2012 (UTC)

Alright, as promised, a detailed list of more suggested teams!

Policy and Standard Team
A group of a group of trusted users responsible for reviewing and enforcing our policies, which we probably need, looking at all of the rule breakers and chaos on this wiki......

Responsibilities'
 * Enforce the policies
 * Tell users if they are breaking any rules
 * Maintain quality standard of articles, files, templates, whatever
 * Check recent edits to articles
 * Help users with issues

On some wikis that has a Policy and Standard team, they give the members of the team rollback rights, to undo vandalism and bad edits. This is entirely up to the community to decide whether the members can have rollback rights or not.

Some other wikis that has a Policy and Standard team, the members are also granted chat moderator rights. Again, this is up to the community's decision.

Reference Team
This wiki is sorely in need of help with references, which a team can be used to solved the problem.

Responsibilities
 * Add references to pages that need references
 * Change the ref tags to the template
 * Correct references

Updating Team
The wiki also need severely help with updating articles with new information, as I see only one person beside me regularly update the characters' histories, a few people on this and that, and summaries for the new chapter or episode being written long after it is released.

Responsibilities
 * Write summaries for new chapters and episodes as soon as possible
 * Update all characters' histories with new information from the anime, manga, movies, etc, as soon as possible
 * Devil Fruits, fighting styles, things, ships, organizations, etc in the anime, manga, movies, and so on should be updated as soon as possible

As of now, this is probably too early to have more teams, as we just started our first official teams. So we'll just discuss if we do need the more suggested teams now, blah blah blah. Got it, guys? No jump ahead to making teams before discussion on the suggested ideas are even started, okay?

Also, the first teams had been launched about a week ago. Any feedback on the teams? What do you guys think of the teams? Any flaws that need to be banged out or whatever? I personally like it, as editing activity had really increased, and with it, quality of the articles, pictures and whatever. 02:26, November 19, 2012 (UTC)

Referencing team yes. There are far too many pages with few (correct) references. Updating team I don't think is needed, but it might be good to have a place to discuss some of those confusing parts of new chapters and episodes. Responsibility team I'm a little iffy on, but if we think that's it's necessary then let's go with it. 03:32, November 19, 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, I like the referencing team, it's a good idea. For the updating team, it sounds like a combination of the Growth Spurters and Overviewers. Not completely favoring it, but I don't mind it. 03:40, November 19, 2012 (UTC)

Team Membership Issues
I kind of have a problem with people being on many teams at once. I feel like it's important for people to be more dedicated to solving certain kinds of problems. And that would become more difficult for people to devote their full attention to the problems teams are designed to fix. I feel as though people may not be understanding that teams are really for people who wish to specialize in one kind of edit. It doesn't mean you have to be on the team for every kind of edit you wish to make. I think people really should commit to only one or maybe two teams so that we can really make more progress with specific team projects, and not have team members that are doing nothing for their team. It's totally fine for people to help out other teams now and then, or even change teams, I just want a bit more commitment from people who are signing up for teams. 23:23, November 13, 2012 (UTC)

If they can keep up with their duties on all the teams they are signed up for, then I don't see the problem with letting them join multiple teams. If it becomes a problem later on, then we can handle it then, but until now I say that we step back and see how it goes. 23:54, November 13, 2012 (UTC)

Also, the team members must be committed to whatever their team's job is. We don't want inactive members doing nothing for the team. If there is a good reason, such as being in a hospital, vacation, exams, whatever, then that is fine. But members that do not have a valid reason for not doing their team's job? I don't know about you, but I'm not fine with that. Any ideas for this? 17:16, November 14, 2012 (UTC)

Bump. 22:01, November 16, 2012 (UTC)

Teams
Team Flash Monkeys (Image Team)

Flashmaster General: User:JustSomeDude...
 * Main Image team page: One Piece Encyclopedia:Flash Monkeys Overview
 * Anime Image Team- Anime sub-team head monkey: User:Galaxy9000


 * Anime team page
 * Manga Image Team- Manga sub-team head monkey: User:Claudia323
 * Manga team page

The Overviewers (Summary Team, includes chapter/episode summaries and stubs)

Chief Executive Summary Officer: User:Pacifista15

Group Page

Team OGD (Obsessive Grammar Devotees) (Grammar Team)

Head Obsessor: User:Jademing

Team Page

The Growth Spurters (Stub Team, stubs aside from chapter/episode summaries)

Article Groverlord: User:DarkSkullPirates

Team Page

Changing the Focus of Teams
It has been about 2 months, and while the teams appeared to be initially successful, nearly all of them have dwindled down to just the leaders working on their own, if at all. So, before we go ahead and abandon the idea and eliminate the teams, I suggest that we change the focus of teams a bit. I propose that we focus the teams to attract new editors rather than try to get current ones more active. This would help the teams be much more productive, but also help the wikia get more active editors overall. I would suggest that we go about doing this by making a general "all teams" page, and linking it on the generic welcome the wikia adds after everyone's first edit, as well as the main page and several other locations. We would also re-write the team pages to be more friendly and understandable for new users. And having the team leaders actively train the new users in the ways of editing. If all the team leaders and team member agree and wish to help out, we should go ahead and do something like I described above. Otherwise, the whole teams idea is doomed to die. Also any alternative fresh ideas would be appreciated. 03:29, January 8, 2013 (UTC)


 * This idea would work if we had a good and constant flow of new users coming in that want to contribute. We dont have that right now. What we have is a free for all. Its the wild west right now, and im not trying to be over-dramatic or anything. We need to give people a fun experiences to edit or some type of incentive. Something like Crew member of the month or roles of the crew. Btw, it should be called crews not teams, srsly this is a One Piece wikia wtf. People should have duties as a crew member, there should be a chain of command. Users should have roles like in a real crew as in helmsman or a sniper or a damn carpenter. Do these titles really mean anything? no, but it is fun to have them. We put bounties on pages and things we need edited using beli as points and create some type of point system. People are so busy trying to out-point eachother that look at that, the wikia will look flooded with WA activity and new users coming in week by week who want in on the fun and action. There should be interviews or some type of applications to join the crews. You think this is all BS that this is a waste of time but we want this wikia to have a better chance at becoming more top notch and mainstream. A place where people actually WANT to go and contribute instead of getting into some stupid argument and get banned or just leave. We need this to be fun for new users, not "hey ur new? you better know everything and anything there is to know about one piece or we will revert ur edits all the time". Thats when ur idea comes in JDS, but we cant have that if we dont have users here to test the theory. Thats all i have to say.  03:58, January 8, 2013 (UTC)


 * I agree that we really don't have the the influx of new users to make this idea truly 100% successful, but I think this is one of the best ways I can think of to start. If we really wanted to make substantial changes towards getting new users and a more active wiki, we would have to do a lot more than than just team things. But we won't be able to get any of that until we get the ball rolling somehow, at least in my mind. 04:27, January 8, 2013 (UTC)


 * I ain't no (article) editor, therefore I should not be the one to talk. But IH's idea about "member of the month" is a good one (actually that idea did pop into mind a few months ago but not sure if its actually do-able). It would be fun if you editors have some sort of competition for the month / quarter / year, e.g. "highest editor of the month / quarter" or "most improved editor of the month / quarter" etc. However there needs to be some sort of statistical data to analyse from in order to achieve that. What you all have now are just a one lump sum of total article edits count. If only there's a way to break those counts further into its details and split by months, you guys will be fighting to earn the "editor of the month award" while doing what you are enjoying currently.
 * For info, my work deals with database extraction and analythics and I produce statistics per person for merit / demerit purposes. In the event that you do have the data but do not have the way to process it, I may be able to contribute some assistance.  09:59, January 8, 2013 (UTC)

As the leader of the Reference team, I completely support what you said JSD. I've thought about it too, and was actually planning to make an Editor of the Month thingie, but kinda forgot to do it :/ So l'm really glad you brought this up (also you Ayet-san). Right now, the only way to get to the team pages is by searching in the search bar or this forum page. Hard to attract editors when they don't even know these teams exist :/ So a general page with the teams listed would be a good thing. And yes, we could put it in the Navigation bar at the top, for example under "Community", the Main Page and other places. And l agree that the team pages look pretty boring :/ Also what Hungry said, we can make it more fun too. Not a bad idea to change the teams into crews, and putting in those things like helmsman, sniper etc. I think this will work to get new users into contributing in these teams. I've been looking for a while at how the Fairy Tail Wiki does it too. This would be a good start on making this wiki attractive for new users. 21:30, January 8, 2013 (UTC)