Forum:Bad idea from Dr. Skullthumper, No. 259

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Forums: Index > Village Dump > Bad idea from Dr. Skullthumper, No. 259 (talk)
Note: This topic has been unedited for 5835 days. It is considered archived - the discussion is over.

Famine is gone. I ain't leaving a message on his talk page, because that's just plain pointless. He's gone. Gone, people. Get over it.

However, he made some damn good points. Namely, two of them. If a site like this is to run, it's got to be run with a complete asshole at the helm, or at least a good bunch of assholes. Lacking any actual assholes, I'm thinking maybe an asshole-y idea might do the trick.

Proposal: Nothing on VFH gets featured until it is +20.

If there's no feature, too damn bad. The feature queue just runs its course. If the same feature's stuck on the page for a week, well, shit happens.

But why, you ask?

  • It would encourage community activity. Basically, it would take twenty or more active users to get a page featured and keep the Main Page running smoothly.
  • It would encourage voting. Which is what everyone's whining about these days, right? That and the price of gas, I believe.
  • It would encourage WRITING. I don't write for the main page, but I write so that others might read it. I like VFH. I don't care if my stuff failed off of VFH. But why the hell am I writing if nobody's going to give me any feedback? I think that goes for all of us. Yes, we're inspired some days, yes, we don't write just for other people. I know this. But damn, does it feel like I'm writing into a black hole right now.
  • It would prevent shit from making it to the main page. Along with gas bills and voting, this is another big complaint. Hello, less voting = less of a chance the bad stuff will be weeded out. Do the math.
  • Did I mention it would encourage community activity?

Yes, it's really radical, and yes, it appears stupid on the surface. But what kind of Uncyclopedia is this if we're not open to screwing up once in a while? Are we afraid, so we have to vote on stuff all the time just in case somebody might get angry? Really, no wonder Famine left, we're a bunch of sissies. – Sir Skullthumper, MD (criticize • writings • SU&W) 04:07 Apr 22, 2008

Discuss (vote and I will remove your liver)

  • That's crazy, insane, absolutely ludacris, out of control, STUPID, THREE FRIES SHORT OF A HAPPY MEAL, WACKO...


















...and I like it! - Rougethebat.gifAdmiral Enzo Aquarius-Dial the Gate SonicLivesPicture.png 04:24, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

  • I like it. We used to have articles featured with +20 all the time, but we may need to experiment with that number a bit. -- §. | WotM | PLS | T | C | A 04:32, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
    • And by "experiment" you mean "keep it exactly where it is," right? If we're not setting the bar high, we may as well not set the bar at all. – Sir Skullthumper, MD (criticize • writings • SU&W) 04:33 Apr 22, 2008
      • It's all whatever we all think is right. Obviously something like 15 may not be a good minimum, but if we think 20 is unreasonably high or something we could try slightly lower numbers. Not that I think it should be lowered personally, I'm just suggesting it as a possibility. -- §. | WotM | PLS | T | C | A 04:38, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
  • I wasn't sure to begin with, but the more I think about it the better it seems. Way back in the day, we didn't change the featured article daily, and I didn't hear nobody complaining. It may encourage article whoring, but I guess that's not such a huge deal. --Cap'n Sir Ben GUN WotM VFH VFP 04:36, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
    • Article whoring, I think, is what drove people away from voting in the first place. At first, voting was a personal thing. You went into VFH, voted, and left. Now there's stupid obligations, vote-for-me-and-I'll-vote-for-you kind of shit. It may encourage article whoring, but the article whores will soon give up under this system, because if everybody's whoring at once trying to get something featured, it'll all cancel out eventually. – Sir Skullthumper, MD (criticize • writings • SU&W) 04:39 Apr 22, 2008
    • Good point. --Cap'n Sir Ben GUN WotM VFH VFP 04:42, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
      • I'm not convinced they'll give up. It's hard for me to imagine that a system just disappears once it becomes the normal thing to do. But stricter VFH requirements does have some merit if we get higher-quality articles because of it. Way to be italic. --Pleb SYNDROME CUN medicate (butt poop!!!!) 06:23, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
        • Thank you, I try. It seems Famine was the only italic one left around here. People are no longer willing to try new ideas, to fuck up a bit. Again I repeat: What kind of Uncyclopedia is this, then? – Sir Skullthumper, MD (criticize • writings • SU&W) 11:13 Apr 22, 2008
  • Against. Because:
    • You write so more people will see the articles, but you want less articles on the front page? That doesn't make sense.
    • I think artificially raising the bar for getting on the front page would discourage writing more than anything.
    • Articles also used to featured with 4 votes. Times change.
    • It's not the absolute number of votes or the number of people using VFH that matters, it's the proportion of votes that nomination gets compared to the others that decides it. 10 voters giving one nomination 7 and another 6 is the same as 100 voters giving one 70 and the other 60.
    • That increased number of votes (and voters) will lead to better quality results is a common fallacy. It assumes that the majority has good taste, or that everyone has the same taste. Take a look at any popular music chart, or any current US president for an example.
    • It would prevent quality niche articles from making it to the main page. Good articles that don't appeal to everyone may be overlooked, and lose the chance to get more attention from those that it would appeal to. For example, I know that the Geologist article is very popular with geologists, and is (or at least was) frequently linked from blogs (thanks google alerts) as a great read, but would probably never be featured, especially with a 20+ vote limit.
    • The feature system doesn't like a space of more than two days between featuring. After two days of no feature, only the "yesterday's feature" will show. After 4 straight days of no feature, the featured article will disappear completely. To implement your rule, you'll have to find someone who understands the feature system well enough to rewrite it to handle more space, and that'd probably be either me or Algorithm. And I'm not doing it.
  • In conclusion, you're right. It is a bad idea. If you want to do something that'll probably work better and has already been tried and tested, we can just go back to featuring once every two days. • Spang • ☃ • talk • 06:33, 22 Apr 2008
  • I don't want less articles on the front page, I want them to be considered more. More time on VFH means more feedback.
  • Artificially raising the bar would mean a more active VFH, which would, in turn, encourage writing. Instead of throwing your writing into what is at times a virtually immobile system, it will feel more like it's going into an active system.
  • Naturally, and times suck right now.
  • Yes, but 70 and 60 would be more accurate.
  • Increased number of votes and voters means that articles the community likes will make it to the front page, not those that only 10 or 11 like. Right now, articles are getting featured with so few votes that a good bunch of againsts don't make a difference, so the articles don't get fixed up.
  • If it's not funny to a wide audience, why is it going to be featured?
  • If that isn't motivation to vote, I don't know what is.
Also, why go back to something that is tried and tested? Wasn't every system on here once a new idea? – Sir Skullthumper, MD (criticize • writings • SU&W) 11:11 Apr 22, 2008
I'd also like to add that we can speculate all we want, but we'll never know until we try. – Sir Skullthumper, MD (criticize • writings • SU&W) 11:22 Apr 22, 2008
  • What Spang said, but with a more tasteful sig at the end. Also, if there's no pages with a vote of X each day, wait a day. We can take it. Waiting for 20 is too much, as the number of voters and the number of votes fluctuates wildly. Like me. I'm fluctuating right now. Wildly will have to wait until the drugs kick in. Oh oh, here we go! Sir Modusoperandi Boinc! 07:18, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
    • the number of voters and the number of votes fluctuates wildly - which is exactly what I'm aiming to fix. – Sir Skullthumper, MD (criticize • writings • SU&W) 11:14 Apr 22, 2008
      • Being an asshole in that will just scare people away from voting rather than attracting it. I think that something closer to the wikipedia concensus system would be a little better because it allows people to be more pretentious (attracting votes) while not requiring a fixed number of votes, allowing us to feature decent quality articles everyday at the expense of a little time reading opinions by an admin.
      • As evidenced by Sycamore below me, this would even scare writers away. Even writers such as yourself would have trouble getting enough votes. We've never gotten 20s as standard, and with as many active users as we have there'd have to be a hell of a concensus trying to feature an article. 15 is a more manageable number, and we've been able to manage with this number, at least. We know we can do this, and if we can get the featured vote up to 15 without consequence, then we can slowly go up. I don't think articles that get by with +10 are really good enough. ~ Tophatsig.png

        Jacques Pirat, Esq. Converse : Benefactions : U.w.p.

        22/04/2008 @ 11:38
        • What? We're modeling stuff after Wikipedia? Oh, joy. Because we know Wikipedia's a total blast to be at. Christ, I should have just stayed away after Lent. – Sir Skullthumper, MD (criticize • writings • SU&W) 18:45 Apr 22, 2008
          • Wikipedia sucks to be at because there's too much regulation --- it's like what happens when you mix bureaucracy with anarchy. Uncyclopedia doesn't have any facts, so our admins and users get to go through gut feelings rather than requirements. "Voting" on Wikipedia is one of the few things left that isn't very bureaucratic, but when it is imported in this land of little regulation, it's free of those strings and it'd become a more accessible means of "voting" for articles. ~ Tophatsig.png

            Jacques Pirat, Esq. Converse : Benefactions : U.w.p.

            22/04/2008 @ 20:16
  • Oh crap- I'll never get a feature if this hard line shit comes into play, and I'll be doomed to the obscurity that only geniuses and complete fecking losers can aspire--Sycamore (Talk) 08:35, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
  • Part of me says, "no," but the rest says, "HELL NO." I've paid as close attention to anyone on this page save maybe Capn Ben and Spang. If you don't like the quality of featured articles, go back to featuring every other day. It will cut our features in half, and will reduce the workload on admins. But I am 100% ABSOLUTELY OPPOSED to setting a ceiling (or, if you prefer, a floor) on features. You'll have MONTHS between features. It's a ridiculous suggestion. Of course, if we lowered the standards on the articles that are kept (i.e., make it harder to delete a bad article), that would encourage creativity, which would increase the BEST of what we feature, which would encourage writing. But that's an old argument. If you go four days without a new feature, the downturn in the site will accelerate. That's bad. I still say we should focus our efforts on rating and sorting the ratings. --<<Bradmonogram.png>> 12:13, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
  • If we're going to do everything Famine said, we might as well just scrap the site and leave. That was essentially the suggestion he left on his talk page. I dunno about you guys, but I'm rather enjoying myself here. - P.M., WotM, & GUN, Sir Led Balloon Baloon.gif(Tick Tock) (Contribs) 16:24, Apr 22

A different suggestion

Maybe we could reduce the contraints on self-nomming. Back when they were enacted, self-nomination was a serious problem, but Today, we seem to have more of a problem getting people to nom articles. Maybe if we took away some of the hindrances that were placed there to move people from VFH to Pee Review, it'd solve our VFH problems. (It was there artificially anyway). If you want to encourage writing, that'll do it in a heartbeat. Also, I still think the biggest VFH problem is that it's not coming to the top of the watchlist. If it did that, we'd get more traffic there, as well.--<<Bradmonogram.png>> 12:20, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Brad. Self-noming would definitly increase the trafic of vfh and probably the creativity. Also, brad, if you want VFH at the top of peoples watchlists, go in there and put in a . once in a while. Its harmless, and way you being an op might actualy do something.--Lieutenant THEDUDEMAN Dude ... Totally UOTM KUN GotA F@H 12:46, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
  • Against removing the selfnom/pee review rule. I don't think you remember how many mediocre, "first try" pages were self-nom'd on VFH, only to be mercilessly crushed by, well, everyone. Think of Pee Review as a handgun purchase waiting period. Yeah. Then you'll show them. You'll show them all! Sir Modusoperandi Boinc! 17:28, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

I think the problem was always going to come up simply because of the number of features we have now. Why don't we drop to 1 every 2 or 3 days? Give time for more votes to build up for any given article. Takes the pressure off "we need a feature today!!!!!". And maybe even allows the quality levels to build up with decent articles staying the course? -- Sir Mhaille Icons-flag-gb.png (talk to me)

I agree with Mhaille. It kind of goes well with DrS's idea, but a little more logical. 2 days is enough features to keep people happy, and it takes a shit load of pressure off of VFH. --Lieutenant THEDUDEMAN Dude ... Totally UOTM KUN GotA F@H 17:49, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
Let's put it to a vote, then... - P.M., WotM, & GUN, Sir Led Balloon Baloon.gif(Tick Tock) (Contribs) 17:53, Apr 22
Because we're all too sissy to change anything without a vote, right? – Sir Skullthumper, MD (criticize • writings • SU&W) 18:42 Apr 22, 2008
No, because democracy is the right thing to do. We're not trying to run some kind of well-oiled internet machine, here. We're trying to have a website where people can have fun, and where everyone's say matters. If a user has a problem, the website has a problem, and now is the time to have a discussion to decide what we do, and make any problems known. The other thing we aren't trying to do is stir up any drama. I'd appreciate it if you wouldn't do that, either. - P.M., WotM, & GUN, Sir Led Balloon Baloon.gif(Tick Tock) (Contribs) 18:53, Apr 22
Maybe if we weren't so afraid of drama, things would actually change. – Sir Skullthumper, MD (criticize • writings • SU&W) 18:55 Apr 22, 2008
NO! This does not allow votes to build up for any given article, because the same bunch of people are voting. We need more voters, not more time. – Sir Skullthumper, MD (criticize • writings • SU&W) 18:42 Apr 22, 2008
Maybe, but your original idea has the serious potential to break the queue, and we just cannot have that. - P.M., WotM, & GUN, Sir Led Balloon Baloon.gif(Tick Tock) (Contribs) 18:47, Apr 22
So? If things get really bad, just adjust the date on the last feature. – Sir Skullthumper, MD (criticize • writings • SU&W) 18:49 Apr 22, 2008

Vote to feature a page every 2 days

Score: +3

Got you

No really, it is a bad idea. Spang almost caught on, I think, but not quite. The only point I'm trying to make here is, Uncyclopedia is boring. Too much is going right around here. We've fallen into a groove.

Don't you see that the community the most active when everything's going wrong? When the Main Page is unprotected, when Nintendorulez is unbanned, when Dr. Skullthumper makes a stupid post in the forums. When we're searching for Famine, when we're bashing a newb, when we're protesting a change. The problem around here is, nothing is going wrong. It's all very much the same ol' thing.

Which is what every wiki aspires to be, right? A well-oiled machine? Maybe Wikipedia. Maybe most wikis. But not this one. I've been here almost a year now, and I realize that we run on hacks, faith, luck, and creativity. And I think that's been lost in favor of voting and process and shit.

Where's the spontaneity anymore? – Sir Skullthumper, MD (criticize • writings • SU&W) 20:00 Apr 22, 2008

What we need are more users, more good content, and a more powerful and involved administration. I also think that the first few steps on the Wiki Life Cycle may be useful. --Sir Starnestommy Icons-flag-us.png (Talk • Contribs • CUN) 20:12, Apr. 22, 2008
But we have the users, and the potential to create good content. So what's missing? Personally, I think a touch of madness. – Sir Skullthumper, MD (criticize • writings • SU&W) 20:13 Apr 22, 2008
I say we kill all the sane people. All of them. - P.M., WotM, & GUN, Sir Led Balloon Baloon.gif(Tick Tock) (Contribs) 20:21, Apr 22

Let me see if I'm reading what Skullthumper is saying in the previous heading right

"...what's missing? Personally, I think a touch of madness." Are you saying non-stop drama would help the site? If we factionalized, that'd do the job easily. We could break into political parties (like the "dictator-worshipers," "deletionists," "n00b coddlers," and "chaotic neutrals"), which would do the job. I'm not suggesting we SHOULD do that, just that it'd serve Skullthumper's ends.--<<Bradmonogram.png>> 23:52, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Vote for STM 'n' Spang! • Spang • ☃ • talk • 01:33, 23 Apr 2008
I'm convinced! You've got my vote! -- Tinymooose.gif » Sir Savethemooses Grand Commanding Officer ... holla atcha boy» 06:26, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
I'm down with this. I dig anything partisan and full of loathing :D --Littleboyonly.jpg T​K​F​​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​CK Oldmanonly.jpg 02:57, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
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