Thread:Inept Wiki User/@comment-5275759-20191214104202

Seeing as there are a number of people in need of a recap as to what's been happening on the wiki over the past few months, I'm going to be compiling a joint recap here.

There is a lot to cover so this might take a little while.

Currently compiling/writing as of 21/12/2019

Sections to be written: Recent Wiki Activity, Recent User Actions, Series Three Overhaul Project (Index III/Accelerator, 2020), Progress Log, Personal Notes (Operation Leaf Sweep, Depression)

Previous Discussion Thread: Discussion, Brainstorming & Plans (22/10/19-)

User Status
So far as I know, OH&S is due back today after their trip overseas. Herald is planning to help with Railgun T episodes. Ollerus and The Lord Reader have been busy with end of year exam work but that may have passed now. As for me, I'm currently attempting post-stall recovery (not for the first time).

Active Tasks
The following tasks are currently ongoing (bear in mind that these might not be all of them):
 * New Release Updates (very gradual progress)
 * NT22R
 * Railgun SS3
 * Biohacker Arc
 * Index III/Accelerator Anime (Series Three Overhaul Project)
 * Monthly Manga
 * Pre-Railgun T work (Series Three Overhaul Project)
 * Image Information Survey (stalled)
 * Operation Leaf Sweep (stalled)
 * Overhaul Plans (multiple subjects)
 * Multiple joint projects (Shared Drafts)

General Updates
With the release of NT22R and the Accelerator anime within the past six months, there have been updates for new and existing material corresponding to the two. The Series Three Overhaul Project (STOP) has continued, but progress has been quite slow. Basic general updates have been carried out for both of them. For areas requiring in-depth updates and overhauling, some have been carried out but there are still a fair few which are still incomplete. While most of the low-level updates have been completed, there are a few temporary summary placeholders yet to be placed. Images were uploaded during the anime airing period (many by Kaysuami) in anticipation for the associated work and gathered in a temporary log, though there are still a few things still to be done on that end.

The basic updates for monthly manga updates have continued, though as with the other updates, much of the in-depth stuff is still to be done. The situation is similar for the BD bonus stories, Railgun SS3 and the Biohacker Arc. Catchup from previous batches has also been occurring.

Other
Aside from the general updates, three other major projects are covered in their own sub-sections below; the Shared Drafts, the Image Information Survey and the Wiki's 10th Anniversary. There are several dozen large-scale overhauls in the planning and draft stages on sandboxes.

As you know, we've also had updates to the Slider and the introduction of the Quick Link templates by OH&S. A few minor updates were made to the 'Did you know' template in November with items for the works released/continued since the May Overhaul.

In late August, there were updates following the first chapter of Toaru Kagaku no Dark Matter and the Toaru Magazine (which revealed the full names for Scavenger's members and the name of the Nectar Arc). Lord Reader added various Accel/Idol debuts and manga images (including a fair number from Idol) to character infoboxes in October, as well as tackling infobox spacing and debut outliers, and added numerous YP terms to Nihongo usages in November. Aside from the monthly manga updates and sought images, Ollerus has carried out work on Pseudepigrapha, anthologies, parodies, side-stories and other similar works, updated various chapter pages to the modern format, added Localized Releases (on that note, the possibility of separating some of these into subpages was being considered) to various volume pages, and tackled redlinks, among others. Auric Drake was gradually revising Kamijou Touma's Chronology subpage (I intended to wait until that was largely done before fine-tuning).

In November, there was also a fair amount of expansion for the Chronologies of Telesma, Magic Cabal and Magic Circle (over the past few months, we've looked into the symbolic meanings for their some of magic circle components - including the ones surrounding the repeatedly featured pentagram). The Russian Shopping Center was also de-directed for article work. There have been a few small expansions of the Toaru IF page (aggregation of information is now occurring on SD4) - the possibility of a new wiki for it was being considered by Herald, but this idea is currently on hold.

Recent User Actions/Observation (Currently Writing)
There are a few things I should probably bring up regarding certain user actions during the past six months. A number of users have been under observation at various points for various reasons.

While few of them might be deliberate troublemakers, a considerable number of them are of the well-intentioned but slightly problematic sort. The latter are ones to keep an eye on, not to reprimand but to assist and guide when needed. At present, for most of them, I've largely kept watch and not spoken to them, in part due to having doubts and trouble in deciding the right words to use to properly convey things in a tactful manner. Some of the introduced problems have been resolved, others remain.

Article-Related
As I mentioned before... Some have made loads of edits, others have made few. Some of the changes or additions have required minor supplementary edits, while others have needed a major rewrite.

The nature of the problems from some of the article edits are varied; some just have grammatical errors, others are rather messy and sloppily written. Some are bloated, some have inaccuracies and assumptions buried within them, and quite a few lack references. Some deviate from standard procedures and formats, some perpetuate outdated formats, tendencies and old mistakes.

There have also been various cases involving images, which might be due to protocols not be conveyed or made clear. They have included image additions or replacements, to infoboxes and main text, of questionable, unsuitable, excessive or unnecessary natures. Also, most have been uploaded without categories or details (a common problem), and have occasionally deviated from standard naming formats.

Users which have been watched during the past six months include Darkmonger (recently joined), Bourbon7 (primarily Index III episode edits), a notable one whose name I've lost track of and forgotten, Anon 175.158.225.XX, Rei Furuya (primarily Jailbreaker Arc characters), Wannabebadboy89, Anti-Mage 29‎ (edit to A Certain Iron Railway Bridge), Bellic58 (July/August), EasOwned (a Gunhamaniac, main problems were earlier in the year but at least a few recently), Craytherlay, DestinyDude0, and several others whose usernames/IPs elude me at the moment.

One minor thing of note, AriesX4 made a brief return and tried to repeat their unwanted/superfluous edit from a few years back. This was swiftly dealt with and they haven't shown themselves again.

Comments & Threads
Aside from article edits, there have been a number of cases of rapid comment posting and a few cases of disinformation/assumption being spread. Some of these are likely in a similar case to the above. Users under observation in this area have included several anons, Craytherlay (formerly 24.194.166.232), (Quartzviel (formerly Quartzmaser), behind previous rewording issues), DestinyDude0, EasOwned, and others.

There have also been several cases of the usual conflicts concerning characters and few comments which have added to the cleaning load.

One notable incident occurred in late October 20th-24th - after dealing with some inappropriate comments, I spotted signs which made me suspect that someone might be using multiple accounts as sock-puppets (in the comments of Accelerator, Misaka Misuzu, Misaka Worst and Misaka Tabigake). Ollerus concurred and I located some evidence on another wiki (though I wasn't sure how much I could use it), so we kept them under observation while we dealt with other more urgent matters. The accounts in question have made no further action since then.

In terms of discussion threads, Joseph yamoah jr has carried out a number of borderline spam edits and has been warned about it but ignored them. I don't intend to give them another warning. In the summer, Proroach was somewhat excessive in thread creation but this was a case similar to the above and they stopped doing so after being told about it.

Shared Drafts
In the past, we have tried to carry out simultaneous joint work on certain subjects, with mixed success in the draft phase. I've previously considered the idea of having an open sandbox for such work (though there were a number of problems with this idea), but a month or so ago, I realized that there was another possibility and began an experiment to test it.

The result of this was the creation of the Shared Draft templates. As the name suggests, these are templates containing a draft which can be worked on by multiple contributors. The contributors can place them anywhere on their sandboxes, wherever is convenient. The template has a top-nav bar on top containing links to the sandboxes it is located on as well as an edit link and refresh button - that way the users can easily edit the template and then easily return back to where they came.

First impressions seem good, so I intend to continue with them. I have to admit, I did get a bit overenthusiastic and carried away in the early test stages so I created a large number earlier than I probably should have done. There are currently 50 of them, 47 of which have been assigned tasks, though only a few of them have been positioned on multiple user sandboxes.

Given the nature of the Shared Draft templates and subsequent discussion, I've decided to discontinue the Image Tasklist posts that I had previously been doing in favour of a regularly updated one on one of the Shared Draft templates (with something similar for Odd Jobs). Other tasks which have been assigned so far include monitoring, aggregation and brainstorming tasks.

Image Information Survey
One of the major undertakings within the past few months is an effort to catalogue the many images which are lacking proper information and add it to them (which will be necessary for certain other plans which are in the works - such as a link to episode images from an episode infobox, which would depend on the images listing the source episode so they can be listed via Special:WhatLinksHere). Given that there are over 9000 files on the wiki, I decided to carry out the initial phase (going over and recording all of the images lacking info) via sweeps carried out with my recently activated Bot.

In order to carry out this project, which has been called the 'Image Information Survey', I copied a list from Special:AllPages (File:) of all files on the wiki at a particular point - separated into 28 batches, created a tag (which can be used to produce a convenient list via Special:WhatLinksHere) and category (to indicate the files currently being processed), and drew up a plan of sweeps to be carried out in a specific order to accomplish the objectives.

I carried out the first lot of sweeps on the first batch at the start of November, logging the results as I did so. I ran into a few unforeseen problems while carrying them out, which I intended to tackle and record so the procedure could be amended. However, being the nitwit that I am, I did not record them in the clearest of manners, missed a few key details, and I was interrupted by other matters, such that when I returned, I had forgotten many of the details and couldn't easily remember them. This led to other stuff, and coupled with other matters demanding simultaneous attention, resulted in the project stalling.

I hope to get it going again as soon as possible. I've tried to review and recover all of the details, but the messy recording and other matters interfering has meant I've kept losing my place (I'm somewhat tempted to start over with the second batch and amend/recall as I reencounter things).

One other thing - I've been manually adding tags/framework/details to images added since the list of files was extracted.

Wiki 10th Anniversary
As you know, it was the wiki's 10th birthday in September and as such, I thought that it would be an idea to do a few things to commemorate it. We discussed the matter and go a number of items together in the short time we had. Aside from a commemorative message (similar to the one done for our 8th anniversary), Herald made a great 10th anniversary wordmark, the Featured Article page was updated (to the recently overhauled Coffin page - tying in with the Accelerator anime), and I made a couple of megapoll posts. There was also a countdown to the anniversary itself - although it malfunctioned a bit due to an oversight on my part. There was an idea for a banner but it hasn't gone anywhere yet (just a few tweaks to one of the front page's navbars). Two other ideas were an advent calendar and an 'on this day...' template on the front page similar to the 'Did you know?' template (which incidentally was overhauled earlier in the year and recently had a few more items added) - obviously it is too late for the first one and there has been no work on the second.

Given that it is our tenth year and what happened when it was Toaru Majutsu no Index and Kamachi Kazuma's 10th anniversary, I was hoping to get at least 10 commemorative items ready. However, as Ollerus pointed out, we don't have to hurry it - after all, the 10 announcements for Kamachi's 10th anniversary were spread out over 2014. As such, work on other anniversary items is on hold for now, as we have more pressing matters.

Overhaul Brainstorming
There are a fair number of pages on the wiki which are in need of an overhaul. However, some of them have a very wide scope, with a lot of subtopics and overlap between them - as such, those articles will require extensive and careful work. For these, I was thinking that it would be an idea to do some collective brainstorming on the subjects, putting everything we can think of on the table, considering all of the various possibilities for them, and figuring out how best to approach the reworking. For example, in the case of Academy City, there are many scientific disciplines, technological fields, state elements, societal and cultural factors, and other aspects which are complexly intertwined and intersect in many places.

The main two subjects which I had in mind were Academy City and Magic, and two Shared Drafts have been assigned for brainstorming them. However, my attempts at initiating collective brainstorming have so far fizzled out, owing to various individual circumstances on all sides.

Progress Log
I have continued to record the activity and progress on the wiki and usually posted log posts fortnightly. The idea behind this was to keep track of what is being done on the wiki and to help manage and coordinate work. However there have been numerous problems in doing so. For one thing, it is difficult to verify and organize it into a more presentable and processible form (even then it is still a handful), and updating the log requires considerable effort, even as other work is being done. As a result, many of the logs have been unfinished by the time they were to be posted, and by the time the previously posted and unfinished one is sorted out, the next one is suffering close to posting, and so on. There is a considerable risk of it becoming a serious time sink.

I've previously made regular image tasklists, with possible images to look out for in new releases, particularly while the anime has been airing. However, with the introduction of the Shared Drafts, I've decided to discontinue them in favour of using one of the SD templates for a regular updated shared tasklist.

Personal Notes (Currently Writing)
What follows is a bit of weary rambling. If you are reading rather than skipping this section, apologies for subjecting you to this, and for not writing and conveying things very well.

[Overstretched/overwhelmed], [Org/Tackling], [Focus/Progress], [Comms]

The state of my sandboxes (much like my room) hasn't been helping matters, so I tried to reorganize them into a less messy form. I hoped that this long-overdue cleanup (now more of a leaf sweep than a spring clean) would help to make things easier, but along with nearly everything else, it has stalled part-way as well - leaving the contents in a similar state but spread further.

As a result of all this, on the whole, I've been fairly depressed and frustrated for a considerable number of weeks, which has in turn affected my ability to progress and contributed to a growing negative feedback cycle. At some points, I've felt like crying or exploding, and have had a couple of nightmares. The actions and comments of certain others (including at least one remarking on the lack of progress while at the same time adding some more bits to the workload) have not been helping, along with difficulty in conveying things properly. While there is the option of taking a break from the wiki and attempting to lift the gloom for a short time, judging from the overall circumstances, I don't think it would help all that much and things may well be even worse afterwards, on both ends. It has felt like the only option is to press onwards, regardless of despondency and exhaustion.

[Grateful for the help that has been given]

Upcoming Media
As most of you know, aside from the monthly manga chapter releases, Railgun T, the 3rd season of the Railgun anime and 3rd of the three anime announced for this stage of the Toaru Project, is starting in January and Souyaku Toaru Majutsu no Index, the 3rd series of the Index light novels, is starting in February. Toaru Majutsu no Index SS: Biohacker Arc is also continuing with the release of the Accelerator anime BDs, with the next in late December. It seems likely that Railgun T will have a side-story included with its BD releases as well, but they won't be out for several months yet. Imaginary Fest is also ongoing. No sign of Toaru Kagaku no Dark Matter chapter 2 yet.

It goes without saying that we will need to update as these are released and processed. We will also need to do some updates ahead of time, as we have tried to do before for Index III and the Accelerator anime (with mixed success).

Community Central
There are a few things which have been brought up on Community Central, some of which might need to be looked at in a bit more detail. One of the plans on there is a system change (for the UCP - Unified Community Platform) which means the retirement of the Forums and Talk. Certain other discussion-related parts of the wiki, such as the Message Walls and Article Comments, are on the same system and may be affected by the switch-over.

I'm not completely sure about some of the details, but just in case, I updated the wiki's database dump file in October and might do so again soon, so people can take up-to-date backups if they wish.

The wiki has also been assigned a Wiki Manager, Ursuul, to support us.

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Good grief, this took a week to get together.  